Q: What I'm thinking is no fossil could possibly survive that long. With rates of erosion, volcanoes, earthquakes shaking them violently hundreds, maybe thousands of times over that time period no fossil could survive that long. Maybe I'm wrong but how could anything that long ago even a fossil stay in tact until now.

A: As was already pointed out, fossil have become rock, and so are not going to decay. The problem is that at the rate the continents are eroding, they would be washed into the ocean in just 10 million years. So if the fossils are really that old, they should be long gone, and the continents with them. Geologists don't have an answer for this problem so they just ignore it. The logical answer is that the continents are simply not that old, but logic seems to have little to do with the age of the earth.

Q: Hi. I got a science project about geothermal and fossil fuels. I have to display a Venn diagram of the differences and similarities of geothermal and fossil fuels. I hope you can help me think of at least 5 or more differences and similarities of geothermal and fossil fuels. They can just be point form. I hope you can help. ty!

A: fossil fuels are things we take out of the earth and are burned for energy release... (basically crude oil is million year old rotting trees)
Geothermal energy however is using the heat of the earth itself, you know all that red stuff called lava, and using it to derive energy, usually by converting water to steam to create a pressure difference which turns a turbine, this steam is not released though it is condensed and re-used. Geothermal energy is widely known as a renewable enegy source, but is actually more accurately described as an perpetual energy source.