FOSSIL BASICS
What term refers to any physical evidence in rock that a plant or animal from an earlier period existed?
Fossils
What is the study of rock and sediment layers and how they are arranged over time?
Stratigraphy
What is another name for absolute dating, which provides a more specific age or age range in years?
Numerical dating
Which alternative dating method uses the yearly growth rings of trees to determine when wood grew?
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating)
What structures are similar in function but evolved independently in response to similar environmental stressors without a close common ancestor?
Analogous structures
In what type of rocks do fossils most commonly form because organisms are buried by sediment preventing decay?
Sedimentary rocks
What law states that in undisturbed rock layers, older layers are generally at the bottom and younger layers are at the top?
The Law of Superposition
What is the original radioactive material called in radiometric dating before it decays into a daughter isotope?
Parent isotope
What dating method measures light released from heated minerals to date materials like pottery and ceramics?
Thermoluminescence
What structures share a common ancestor and similar underlying bone arrangements despite having different functions?
Homologous structures
What type of fossil consists of the physical remains of the actual animal, such as teeth, shells, claws, and bones?
Body fossils
What kind of fossil comes from an organism that lived during a relatively short period but was widespread, helping date rock layers?
Index fossil
What term describes the amount of time needed for half of a radioactive parent isotope to decay?
Half-life
Which dating method compares the amount of fluorine absorbed from soil in bones found in the same area?
Fluorine dating
What term describes reduced features that have lost most or all of their original function, such as internal pelvic bones in whales?
Vestigial structures
What type of fossil is a solid replica of an animal or plant?
Cast fossils
What type of dating determines whether a fossil or rock is older or another without giving an exact age in years?
Relative dating
What dating method uses Carbon-14 with a half-life of about 5,730 years for relatively recent organic remains?
Radiocarbon dating (or Carbon-14 dating)
What mineral is commonly used in uranium-lead dating because it can preserve uranium and lead information for extremely long periods?
Zircon
What type of fossils show intermediate anatomical features between an ancestral organism and its descendants?
Transitional fossils
What extremely rare type of fossil preserves both hard and soft tissues through rapid desiccation by the sun followed by a mud or clay flood?
Mummification
What geological events can move or change rock layers, requiring scientists to examine them carefully before using position for age?
Faulting, folding, and tilting
What is the term for estimating a fossil's age by dating the volcanic rock layers found directly above and below it?
Bracketing
Which dating method examines tiny damage trails created when uranium-238 atoms split inside minerals or glass?
Fission-track dating
What specific transitional fossil featured fish-like scales and fins alongside tetrapod-like traits such as a mobile neck and a sturdy rib cage?
Tiktaalik