Wild Words
Helpful History
Freaky Fossils
Rude to Intrude
Super Strata
100
This term refers to the study of rock layers.
What is Stratigraphy?
100
The earth is THIS many years old.
What is 4.6 billion years?
100
These are the two things that scientists study to learn about the history of Earth.
What are rock strata and the fossil record?
100
An igneous intrusion can tell us THIS about Earth's geological history.
What is volcanic activity?
100
This is where you would find the oldest fossils in the fossil record.
What is the bottom?
200
This term refers to the preserved remains of an organism, plant or animal.
What is a fossil?
200
This term refers to the estimated age of a fossil or rock layer in comparison to other layers.
What is relative age?
200
These are two things that scientists can learn about the organisms in Earth's geological history by looking at fossils.
What are patterns of animal movement and plant life?
200
In this picture, WHEN did the basaltic intrusion occur?
After the limestone layer formed
200
List the order in which these events occurred, from youngest to oldest.
E, D, A, B, C
300
This term refers to the layers of sedimentary rock in Earth.
What is rock strata?
300
Why is the geologic time scale helpful for describing Earth's history?
Because the earth is so old that a regular timeline would be too large to manage, and the GTS simplifies it.
300
Finding fossils like clams in a layer of the Earth can tell us THIS about the past.
What is presence of water or climate?
300
When did the earthquake in this picture occur?
Before Layer X was deposited/After Layer W was deposited.
300
What happened between D and E that caused it to be a flat surface?
What is Erosion?
400
This term refers to the remains of organisms and the layers that those remains are found in.
What is the fossil record?
400
WHY are the oldest rock layers found at the bottom?
Because newer rocks and minerals pile on top of the older ones, creating visible layers.
400
Which animals in this chart did NOT live at the same time?
Trilobites did not live at the same time as dinosaurs, birds, or mammals.
400
A magma intrusion comes from this part of the Earth.
What the inside or center of the Earth?
400
Describe the order of events from youngest to oldest.
B, D, F, A, G, E, H, C
500
This term refers to the timing and relationship of events that occurred throughout the history of Earth
What is the Geologic Time Scale?
500
Correlating (matching and organizing) rock layers with the fossils is useful to geologists for this reason.
Answers may vary:
What is helping to find Index fossils, which represent organisms that were only around for a relatively short period of time, so where a fossil is found helps to determine the age of the rock. It helps geologists determine the relative ages of the rocks and sequence the events that formed Earth’s history.
500
What are index fossils?
Fossils that were widespread/abundant and only appear in a short period of time.
500
The Redwall Limestone layer from the Colorado River has these fossils found in it.
What are brachiopods, clams, snails, corals, fish, and trilobites?
500
What does A represent in the image?
What is a boundary?