Aurora Starchild
We know what keeps you up at night. You’re wondering how you can turn yourself into a fossil someday. Well don’t worry, other people have pondered this question, too. And as it turns out, there are options.
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The question is, who wouldn’t want to be turned into a fossil? So here are some ideas so you can plan it early. There is one caveat: we don’t recommend dying, which really makes the timing of fossilization quite tricky. You’re going to have to figure that one out for yourselves.
Tip 1: Don’t Be Buried in a Coffin.
In order to be properly fossilized, you will want moisture and minerals to permeate your body in a gentle manner. Unfortunately, coffins will block most minerals from going anywhere near your body in a timely fashion. So, skip the classic burial.
Tip 2: Be Very Particular About Location.
BBC Future journalist Richard Fisher spent a lot of time researching the best ways to fossilize himself. And the #1 key to proper fossilization is location. In fact, if you have the right atmosphere, you can actually achieve some close alternatives to actual fossilization depending on your preferences. For instance, you can:
Freeze yourself in a glacier, like Oetzi the Iceman.
Prune yourself in a desert cave.
Preserve yourself in a bog via anaerobic, acidic methods.
Cover yourself in amber, like those pretty bugs you’ve probably seen in nature museum gift shops.
Fisher looked into the Los Angeles tar pits as an option as well. Unfortunately, however, he concluded that there is too much movement in the tar, which would likely jostle your body and make it decompose. And while there have been many discoveries of preserved lifeforms in the tar pits, it is now a commonly searched locale for missing people and homicide investigations. Hence, you’d probably be discovered much too soon.
You need to be hidden away for at least 50,000 years in order to fall into the “subfossil” category, and more than that to be an actual fossil.
In Order to Be Properly Fossilized, You Will Need To:
Ideally be buried very quickly and below the groundwater table. According to Jakob Vinther, a macroevolution professor at the University of Bristol, that is the first rule to proper fossilization.
“Generally, to become a fossil you need to get below the groundwater table,” Vinther told Fisher. “That’s the rule of thumb. Everything above will ultimately erode.”
Vinther elaborated that you would also need to be somewhere with little oxygen and where you are safe from being eaten. He acknowledged that anaerobic bacteria may still eat at your body in oxygen-free or low-oxygen environments. However, anaerobic bacteria sometimes give off byproducts that will also help preserve you.
The ideal place to become a fossil, said Vinther, is out to sea. You don’t want to be so far that there isn’t sediment which will bury you, but you do want to be far enough where the currents and animals won’t rough you up.
Tip 3: Start a Bodybuilding Regimen, ASAP.
People with more muscle have a better chance at fossilization. “If you have calcium present and a low pH, then you can get precipitation of calcium phosphate, and if this happens early enough, then this will replicate the individual muscle fibres,” Vinther told BBC.
Last but definitely not least, just know that your liver and genitals are more likely to fossilize than many other parts of your body. Why? Because they often contain more melanin than parts of your body which are exposed to the sun. On that same note, if you’re fair-skinned, you probably won’t preserve as well as your darker skinned brothers and sisters.
