While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently

While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.

1 Explanation

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Hanxiong Jiang

In the original sentence, "While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them."
What's the meaning of 'the wealth of enigmatic fossils'? Does it mean the value of fossils?
Because I notice that there is an idiom 'a wealth of'(= a lot of) in Longman dictionary. And the sentence sounds more logical to me if we interpret the phrase as 'a lot of'.

Feb 7, 2017 • Comment

Adam

Hi Hanxiong,

The phrase "a wealth of X" means "a lot of X." You're correct here — this phrase is saying that there are many such fossils.

Feb 8, 2017 • Reply

Hanxiong Jiang

If so, the verb should use 'seem' instead of 'seems', right? But 'seems' is used in the correct answer.

Feb 8, 2017 • Reply

Cydney Seigerman, Magoosh Tutor

Hi Hanxiong,

Happy to clarify :) While, as Adam mentioned, "a wealth of" refers to a lot of a something, the word "wealth" itself is an uncountable noun (we don't know exactly how much is in a wealth) and as with all uncountable nouns, we use the singular form of the verb. For that reason, "seems" is used correctly in the sentence :)

Hope this helps!

Feb 9, 2017 • Reply