Tubeworm Fossil
(c) 2005 Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com, Inc. (fair use policy)
Tubeworms are primitive animals that live in the mud, absorbing sulfides through their flower-shaped heads that are converted into food by colonies of chemical-eating bacteria inside them. The tube is the only hard part that survives to become a fossil. It's a tough shell of chitin, the same material that makes up crabshells and the outer skeletons of insects. On the right is a modern tubeworm tube; the fossil tubeworm on the left is embedded in shale that was once seafloor mud. The fossil is of latest Cretaceous age, about 66 million years old.
Tubeworms today are found in and near seafloor vents of both the hot and cold variety, where dissolved hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide supply the worm's chemotrophic bacteria with the raw material they need for life. The fossil is a sign that a similar environment existed during the Cretaceous. In fact it is one of many bits of evidence that a large field of cold seeps was in the sea where California's Panoche Hills are today.
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