This Topic in Depth begins with a Web site from the Royal Ontario Museum called Fossils!-Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1). It gives a light-hearted but informative introduction to what fossils are and how they're formed, collected, and identified. Next, the University of California Museum of Paleontology offers the Web site Learning From the Fossil Record (2), which contains several learning...

Anatomist Richard Owen coined the word "Dinosauria," or "terrible lizards" in 1842 when he attempted to order and name recently discovered prehistoric reptiles. Pages from his and many other works that document the history of the discovery of dinosaurs were on view at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, until April 30, 1997. The Library has made a web version of their exhibition...