Rocks Rock!
This is the name for naturally occurring solid material that makes up mountains, cliffs, and pebbles.
What is rock?
These are the preserved remains or traces of ancient plants and animals.
What are fossils?
This huge Ice Age animal looked like a hairy elephant with long curved tusks.
What is a wooly mammoth?
This pink, wiggly animal tunnels through soil and helps make dirt healthier.
What is an earthworm?
Archaeologists study things made or used by people in the past, called these.
What are artifacts?
This type of rock forms when melted rock cools and hardens
What is igneous rock?
This scientist studies fossils and prehistoric life.
What is a paleontologist?
These giant sheets of ice covered large parts of Earth during the Ice Age.
What are glaciers?
These tiny insects build underground colonies with tunnels, rooms, and a queen.
What are ants?
This is the careful process of digging at an archaeological site.
What is excavation?
This sparkly mineral is often used in jewelry and is one of the hardest natural materials on Earth.
What is diamond?
This three-horned dinosaur had a large bony frill on the back of its head.
What is triceratops/ceratopsian?
This famous Ice Age cat had two long canine teeth like daggers.
What is a saber-toothed cat/saber-toothed tiger/smileodon?
This Florida reptile digs large burrows that many other animals may use for shelter.
What is a gopher tortoise?
Broken pieces of this material can help archaeologists learn about cooking, storage, and daily life.
What is pottery?
This process slowly breaks rocks into smaller pieces using wind, water, ice, or plant roots.
What is weathering/erosion?
Fossilized footprints can help scientists learn how dinosaurs did this from place to place.
What is move/walk/run?
This extinct Ice Age animal was much larger than modern sloths and walked on the ground.
What is a giant ground sloth?
This small owl nests in burrows instead of high up in trees.
What is a burrowing owl?
This dating method uses a form of carbon to estimate the age of once-living materials.
What is carbon dating/radiocarbon dating?
These three main types of rock are igneous, sedimentary, and this type, changed by heat and pressure.
What is metamorphic rock?
This word describes animals that eat only plants, like many long-necked dinosaurs.
What are herbivores?
This geologic time period includes the most recent Ice Age and many famous Ice Age mammals.
What is the Pleistocene?
These insects can build huge mounds and are famous for eating wood and dead plant material.
What are termites?
This dating method combines the Greek word for tree (dendro) with the Greek word for time (chrono), allowing them to date buildings by counting tree rings.
What is dendrochronology?