Digging Up Dirt
This job deals with different rocks.
What is a geologist
... is so old, her birthday is in this era, before multicellular life.
What is Precambrian?
This is the yard stick for measuring time since the Earth was formed.
What are Geologic Time Scales?
This early life era was dominated by fish and marine plants.
What is the Paleozoic?
Show a little backbone. Like these creatures.
What are vertebrates?
This scientist, like the fictional Dr. Grant, study remains of animals, plants, and bacteria.
What is a paleontologist?
... is so ugly, the only type of dates she get come from this element with a half life of 5,730 years.
What is Carbon-14?
The Phanerozoic is a collection of eras, meaning it is one of these longest time scales.
What is an Eon?
The current era, this time saw the emergence of large mammals and human beings (like my awesome class)
What is the Cenozoic Era?
These biological remains can be used as benchmarks to establish a worldwide time scale.
What are index fossils?
Paleontologists don't just look in rocks to find these, they can be encased in amber or tar as well.
What are Fossils?
... is so old, her high school was on this super continent that broke up 175 million years ago.
What is Pangea?
These time scales help break down longer periods into more manageable chunks of millions of years.
What are eras?
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth in this era, at least until a meteor had its way.
What is the Mesozoic Era?
In Bikini Bottom, Patrick Star and Spongebob Squarepants enjoy jellyfishing. All three of them lack backbones, making them this.
What are invertabrates?
It's not an exact number, but can determine which remains are older than others.
What is Relative Age?
... is so dumb, she tried to play this on a phonograph
What is a fossil record?
This third order time scale breaks down the Earth's History. Examples include Jurassic and Triassic.
What are periods?
This period of dinosaurs between the Cretaceous and the Triassic was no walk in the park
What is Jurassic?
A mass dying of many species at once. The last one was caused 65 million years ago by a meteor.
What is mass extinction?
The majestic shores of Lake Erie were formed at the end of the latest one of these, a cold period with many glaciers.
What is Ice Age?
... is so smart, she knew that Earth is this old.
What is 4.6 Billion Years?
A subdivision of the geologic timescale that is longer than an age but shorter than a period.
What is an epoch?
Not an era per se, but this is a geological eon spanning the time from the appearance of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere to just before the proliferation of complex life (such as trilobites or corals).
What is Protozoic?
This current epoch corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide.
What is Holocene?