Fun Fossil Types
Agey
Commonly(ish) Confused Words
Picture Match
100
What are fossils?
What are preserved remains or traces of living things.
100
What is absolute age?
What is the number of years that have passed since a rock formed.
100
What gets confused with superstitions?
Law of superpositions; used to determine the relative age of rock.
100
Analyze the image and determine what it is.
Trace fossil - provides evidence of the activities of ancient organisms (a fossil type)
200
What is a mold? (Hint: Not the stuff that grows on cheese)
What is a hollow area in sediment in the shape of an organism or part of an organism.
200
What is relative age?
What is the age of a rock compared to other rocks, i.e. older or younger than.
200
What gets confused with uncomfortable?
Unconformity; gap in a geographical record.
200
Analyze the image and determine what it is.
Index fossil - a fossil that is widely distributed and in existence for a relatively short period in geologic history. They are useful because they tell the relative age of the rock in which they are found.
300
What is a cast?
What is a solid copy of the shape of an organism (a fossil type).
300
Define extinct.
When an organism no longer exists and will never again on earth.
300
What gets confused with canned peas? What gets confused with subpoenas?
PANGEA; the single continental structure before the continental drift.
300
Analyze the image and determine what it is.
Paleontologist - scientists that study fossils.
400
What are preserved remains?
What are a process that preserves entire organisms, i.e. tar, tree resin, freezing (fossil type).
400
What are eras?
What are the time period between the Pre -Cambrian and present time period; Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic
400
What gets confused with pasta fagioli?
Petrified fossil; fossils in which minerals replace all of an organism or part of an organism such as a dinosaur bone - a fossil type.
400
Analyze the image and determine what it is.
Periods - Eras that are subdivided. Many of the names come from places where fossils were discovered.
500
What is a carbon film?
What is an extremely thin coating of carbon on rock (a fossil type).
500
What is half-life? (Hint: not a mid-life crisis:)
It is the time it takes for a radioactive element for half of the elements to decay.
500
What gets confused with performing vegetarian?
Uniformitarianism; the key principle that guides scientists when they make inferences about Earth's past and is states that the geologic processes that operate today also operated in the past.
500
Analyze the image and determine what it is. (Hint: Left image is radioactive.)
Radioactive Decay - elements that release particles of energy and they break down or decay over time. Atoms of one element break down to form atoms of another element.