System Within a System
The Dating Game
In the Beginning...
...Best of the Rest
What's the Good Word?
100
The layer of the atmosphere where weather takes place
What is the troposphere?
100
In the realm of carbon atoms, C12, C13, and C14 would each be an example of one
What is an isotope?
100
88% of Earth's existence is here
What is the Precambrian Eon?
100
The Age of the Reptile
What is the Triassic Period?
100
They were plentiful, but only found at a short time in Earth's existence
What are index fossils?
200
The spheres that would be involved in the eroding of a mountain
What are the Geosphere, Atmosphere, and Hydrosphere?
200
The weight of atoms comes primarily from these particles
What are protons and neutrons?
200
The first three eras from oldest to youngest
What is Hadean, Archaean, and Proterozeric?
200
The Age of the Dinosaur
What is the Jurassic Period?
200
Something that can be found by the Law of Superposition or through the comparison of fossils
What is relative age?
300
Specifically speaking, glaciers and ice caps would be parts of this system
What is the cryosphere?
300
Unstable isotopes attempt to stabilize themselves through this process
What is radioactive decay?
300
The first of these types of one-celled organisms occurred near the end of the Proterozoic era
What are eukaryotes, or nucleated cells?
300
The Age of the Mammal
What is the Cenozoic Era?
300
In other words, the Permean Extinction
What is The Great Dying?
400
Seventy percent of the Earth comprises this Earth system
What is the Hydrosphere?
400
The point where 50% are still unstable parents and 50% are stable daughters
What is a half-life?
400
The era during which the first protists emerged
What is the Proterozoic Era?
400
The specific period in which hominids first appeared
What is the Neogene Period (of the Tertiary Period)?
400
Cold-blooded and egg-laying, but not spineless
What is a reptile?
500
The layer of the Geosphere directly beneath the crust
What is the mantle?
500
The age of a rock when only 12.5% of the isotope I129 remains
What is 51 million years?
500
This era means "old-fashioned"
What is the Archean Era?
500
The Cambrian Explosion took place in this era
What is the Paleozoic Era?
500
Literally, it means measured by the decay of unstable isotopes
What is radiometric (example: radioactive dating)?