The History of Earth
Relative Dating
Tectonic Plates
Absolute Dating/Half-Life
100
This is the approximate age of planet Earth
What is 4.5 to 4.6 billion years?
100
This is the law that explains that newer layers of the Earth sit on top of older layers
What is Superposition?
100
This is the name of the layer of the Earth that is 'plastic' and contains convection currents, responsible for the motion of the Earth's tectonic plates
What is the mantle (or asthenosphere)?
100
This term explains the amount of time it takes for half of an element's mass to decay
What is a half-life?
200
This is the name of the era where bacteria and the simplest forms of life first emerged
What is the PreCambrian era?
200
Based on this image, this would be the oldest layer
What is layer C?
200
These are the two main types of tectonic plates that the Earth consists of
What are Oceanic and Continental?
200
This is the number of half-lives it would take for an element to have 25% of its' original mass remaining
What is 2 half-lives?
300
This is the name of the era where humans first appeared
What is the Cenozoic Era?
300
This is the name of the term that explains that processes & formations that we see on Earth today formed the same way they did in the past
What is 'Uniformitarianism'
300
This is the name of the type of plate boundary shown here, where a subduction zone would commonly occur.
What is a convergent plate boundary?
300
This is the number of half-lives it would take for an element to have 6.25% of its' original mass remaining
What is 4 half-lives?
400
This was the last period that the dinosaurs existed in
What is the Cretaceous period
400
Based on this image, this would be the second oldest layer
What is layer B?
400
This is the name of the type of plate boundary shown here, where a mid-ocean ridge could form
What is a divergent plate boundary?
400
Lead206 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. This is the amount of time it would take 50g of lead to be reduced to 25g.
What is 4.5 billion years (1 half-life)?
500
This is the name of the Period that we are in currently
What is the Quaternary? (also correct: Holocene)
500
Based on this image, this would be the correct order of layers from oldest to youngest
What is B, C, D, A/M, E, F, G, H?
500
This is the term that explains how a subducting plate can 'pull' itself faster towards another plate due to gravity pulling it further down into the mantle
What is 'slab pull'?
500
A 30gram sample of Potassium-40 is found to be 2.48 billion years old. If it was determined that the original mass of the sample was 120 grams, this is the half-life of Potassium-40
What is 1.24 billion years?
(The sample has decayed to 25% of its' original mass - which would take 2 half-lives)