Answer:
As the leaf decomposes, the carbon of the leaf is left in the rock.
Explanation:
A fossil is any rest of the organism or its activity that has a minimum age of 10 thousand years. That is, fossils are the remains or marks of extinct animals, which after death their bodies or marks of their activity have been preserved in some way.
After the death of animals and plants, their components are recycled to be part of other beings, thus completing a cycle of life. For an organism to fossilize, special processes must occur that allow its preservation. When this type of situation occurs, then fossilization occurs.
Then, fossilization is the set of processes that make an organism, some of its parts or traces of its activity, become part of the fossil record.
When vegetables are printed in the sediment leaving their mark, as in this case where an image of a leaf is preserved, it is called "Impressions and Compressions." Then the tissue of the leaf degrades, leaving a trace of where the leaf once was. Finally, <u><em>as the leaf decomposes, the carbon of the leaf is left in the rock.</em></u>