Fossils
A piece of evidence of an animal or plant that lived a long time ago.
What is a fossil?
Because special conditions must be met, most animals never leave behind these.
What are fossils?
The story of how life on Earth has changed, revealed by the fossils of plants and animals found all over the planet.
What is the fossil record?
This shows what the different colors and symbols represent in a map.
What is a key?
A shaking of the ground caused by the sudden movement of Earth’s crust.
What is an earthquake?
Fossils that are traces of an organism, and not the remains of the organism itself.
What are trace fossils?
Rainwater that flows down through the sediment.
A small animal that lived in the ocean long ago.
What is a trilobite?
A map that shows the physical features of an area, like its climate or elevation. Can also show plant cover or where mountains, bodies of water, and deserts are located.
What is a physical map?
The edges of the Pacific Ocean has this name because so many volcanoes occur here.
What is the "Ring of Fire"?
Fossils that form from whole organisms.
What are whole body fossils?
Most fossils are found in this type of rock.
What is sedimentary rock?
Fossils found in the top layer are __ than the ones found in deeper layers.
What is 'younger'?
Maps that show political boundaries, like those between countries.
What are political maps?
A place where melted rock and other material erupts from deep inside Earth.
What is a volcano?
Most fossils are only a __ of an organism.
What is a "part"?
Bones become fossils when their original materials are slowly replaced with this.
What is rock?
Melted rock—which had been magma—once it reaches Earth’s surface
What is lava?
The height of an area above sea level.
What is elevation?
Melted rock under Earth’s surface.
What is magma?
Resin hardens into this clear substance.
What is amber?
Many of the best preserved fossils come from areas that used to be these, because a large amount of sediment is deposited there, covering organisms when they die.
What are shallow seas?
A park in Arizona famous for its many fossilized trees. The petrified trees are evidence that this area once had more rain.
What is the Petrified Forest National Park?
A map that uses symbols called contour lines to show the elevation of an area.
What is a topographic map?
An area of land with high elevation that rises to a sharp peak.
What is a mountain?