Earth's Story
Relative Dating
Absolute Dating
Looking at Fossils
Time Marches On
100
The study of fossils-dun, dun, dun
What is paleontology?
100
a principle that states that younger rocks lie above older rocks if the layers have not been disturbed
What is superposition?
100
the process in which a radioactive isotope ends to break down into a stable isotope of the same element or another element
What is radioactive decay?
100
animals whose remains are usually found as frozen fossils
What is mammoth?
100
the largest division of geologic time
What is eon?
200
The scientist who said the forces that change Earth in the past are the same ones that change it today
Who is Hutton?
200

an arrangement of rock layers in which the oldest rocks are a the bottom

What is geologic column?

200
the time needed for half of a sample of a radioactive substance to undergo radioactive decay
What is half-life?
200
fossilized mark that is formed in soft sediment by the movement of an animal
What is trace fossil?
200
the death of every member of a species
What is extinction?
300
a principle that states that geologic processes that occurred in the past can be explained by current geologic processes
What is uniformitarianism?
300
any method of determining whether an event or object is older or younger than other events or objects
What is relative dating?
300
an atom that has the same number of protons as other atoms of the same element do but that has a different number of neutrons
What is isotope?
300
tree sap that may contain insect fossils
What is amber?
300
the standard method used to divide the Earth’s long natural history into manageable parts
What is the geologic time scale?
400
a principle that states that geologic change occurs suddenly
What is catastrophism?
400
any method of determining whether an event or object is older or younger than other events or objects
What is unconformity?
400
the radioactive isotope that is present in all living things in a constant amount
What is Carbon-14?
400
process in which minerals replace an organism's tissues
What is petrification?
400
the geologic era that we live in
What is the Cenozoic?
500
One of the three fields of paleontology mentioned in the textbook
What are invertabrate paleontology, vertabrate paleontology or paloebotany?
500
a process that would cause a rock layer to be missing in an unconformity
What is erosion?
500
A certain radioactive isotope has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. The fraction of parent material will be left after 3.9 billion years.
What is 1/8th?
500
coprolite
What is fossilized animal dung?
500
the Age of the Reptiles
What is Mesozoic
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