Fossils
The preserved remains or traces of an organism that lived in the past.
What is a fossil?
Method of determining the age of a fossil by comparing its placement with that of fossils in other layers of rock.
What is relative dating?
English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882).
Who is Charles Darwin?
A record of the geologic events and life forms in Earth's history.
What is the Geologic Time Scale?
A type of rock that forms when particles from other rocks or the remains of plants and animals are pressed and cemented together.
What is sedimentary rock?
A space in a rock that has the shape of the remains of a living thing that once occupied that space.
What is a mold fossil?
Process of estimating the age of once living material by measuring the amount of radioactive isotope of carbon present in the material.
What is Carbon-14 dating?
A process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits.
What is natural selection?
An era occurring between 570 million and 230 million years ago, characterized by the advent of fish, insects, and reptiles.
What is the Paleozoic Era?
A type of rock that forms from an existing rock that is changed by heat, pressure, or chemical reactions.
What is metamorphic rock?
A type of fossil that provides evidence of the activities of ancient organisms.
What is a trace fossil?
A technique used to determine the actual age of a fossil based on the amount of a radioactive element it contains.
What is radioactive dating?
Formation of new species.
What is speciation?
A fossil known to have lived in a particular geologic age that can be used to date the rock layer in which it is found.
What is an index fossil?
A type of rock that forms from the cooling of molten rock at or below the surface.
What is igneous rock?
Forms when a mold is filled with sand or mud that hardens into the shape of the organism.
What is a cast fossil?
The geologic principle that states that in horizontal layers of sedimentary rock, each layer is older than the layer above it and younger than the layer below it.
What is the Law of Superposition?
Structures in different species that are similar because of common ancestry.
What are homologous structures?
A break in the geologic record created when rock layers are eroded or when sediment is not deposited for a long period of time.
What is an unconformity?
Breaks in Earth's crust where rocks have slipped past each other.
What is a fault?
A fossil impression in a rock, consisting only of a thin carbon deposit/imprint in the rock.
What is a carbonized fossil?
This is how you know you're "dating" in middle school.
What is you’ve never spoken in person but it’s official on Snapchat?
States that organisms change and develop over time to adapt and increase the rate of survival.
What is the Theory of Evolution?
Geologic time period that began 65 million years ago and continues today (age of mammals).
What is the Cenozoic Era?
The name of the single landmass that broke apart 200 million years ago and gave rise to today's continents.
What is Pangaea?