Geological Change Over Time
Relative Dating
Absolute Dating
Review
Vocabulary
100
This is the approximate age of the Earth
What is 4.6 billion years?
100
This type of rock has oldest layers on bottom and newest layers on top.
What is sedimentary rock?
100
These are atoms with different numbers of neutrons.
What are isotopes?
100
This is the variable that you would measure in an experiment.
What is dependent variable?
100
An ordered arrangement of rock layers that is based on the relative ages of the rocks.
What is a geologic column?
200
This is a sticky sap which can harden and trap the bodies of insects inside.
What is amber?
200
This happens when Earth's forces move rock layers up or down unevenly.
What is tilting?
200
This is a term for an unstable isotope that breaks down over time.
What is radioactive?
200
Light is this type of wave.
What is electromagnetic?
200
This principle states that geological processes that occurred in the past can be explained by what is happening in the present.
What is uniformitarianism?
300
This is a thick, sticky, black substance that wells up from deep within the earth and can trap even large animals.
What is asphalt (tar)?
300
This is the term for when magma "injects" into other types of rock.
What is intrusion?
300
This is a radioactive isotope that decays to a stable isotope.
What is a parent isotope?
300
This state of matter has the slowest motion of particles.
What is solid?
300
The breakdown of a radioactive isotope into a stable isotope of the same element.
What is radioactive decay?
400
This is when an organisms tissues are replaced by minerals.
What is petrification?
400
This is the bending of rocks that occurs when rock layers are squeezed together.
What is folding?
400
This is the term for the isotope that forms after a radioactive isotope has decayed.
What is a daughter isotope?
400
This part of the inner earth is solid and composed of iron.
What is the inner core?
400
A break in the geologic record that is made when rock layers are eroded or when sediment is not deposited for a long period of time.
What is unconformity?
500
The thickness of a tree ring can help scientists determine this.
What is past climate?
500
This is an ordered arrangement of rock layers with oldest rocks at the bottom and youngest rocks at the top.
What is a geologic column?
500
This type of dating can be used for objects between 100,000 and a few billion years old.
What is potassium-argon dating?
500
Shale that undergoes metamorphic processes will turn to this type of rock.
What is slate?
500
Determining whether an object or event is older or younger than other objects and events.
What is relative dating?
M
e
n
u