Oh, that's interesting, especially considering the that preservation is different in different parts of the world.

I used to work at a museum where we taught about dinosaurs, and when we showed a fossil the number one question was, "is that real?" It's such a stupid question, because a) yes it exists in the corporeal world? b) fossils are not the thing they preserve unless it's an amber/ice/tar type of fossil; if you're looking at a fossil of a bone it is not a bone and was never a bone; it's mineral that filled in where the bone was, c) as a result of b it really doesn't matter if what you're looking at is the actual fossil or an exact replica of the fossil, because the fossil is just an exact replica anyway, so replicas are just as useful as the original if they're precisely made.

I mean, most of the people asking the questions were kids, and I can understand why the question felt important to them because they're struggling all the time between fiction and reality; it was when the parents asked that straight off the bat and then dismissed it because it wasn't "real" that I got truly annoyed.