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26 Cards in this Set
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- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
Geologist |
A scientist that studies the Earth's crust as well as the processes and history that shaped it. |
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Paleontologist |
A scientist that studies fossil remains found on the Earth's surface in order to study primitive life form such as: plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria |
What is Ross? |
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Stratigraphy |
A branch of geology dealing with the arrangement of sedimentary rock layers or strata |
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Which rock layers are the youngest? And what is this method called? |
The youngest rock layers are usually on the top. It is called the law of superposition |
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What is relative age? |
Relative age determines the "relative" order of past events but not the absolute. |
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What is important in determining sedimentary rocks relative age? |
The strata of sedimentary rocks |
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Strata is sometimes....(blank) |
Disturbed |
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Fossil Record |
History of life as documented by all fossils, preserved in sedimentary rock strata |
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Fossil Records also provide a (blank) of past events in Earth's geological history |
Snapshot |
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What are the Characteristics of Index Fossils? |
1:Easily Recognizable 2: abundant 3: wide geographical distribution 4: live a short time |
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Special fossils called "index fossils" Indicate to geologists the (blank) in geological time |
Boundaries |
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Index fossils are used to (blank) the age of the rock strata |
Carrilate |
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What is the most accurate form of dating? |
Radiometric dating |
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How does radiometric dating work? And what does it rely on? |
It uses the decay of radioactive elements to find the absolute age of a rock or fossil. It relies on the property of half-life which is the predictable time an element takes to decay |
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All of the Earth's geological history represented on a (blank) time chart |
Chronological |
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What is the Earth's chronological time chart based on? |
It is based on rak strata, and the fossil record |
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What parts are in the Precambrian? |
Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic |
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What happened during the Precambrian? |
1: Oldest rock fragment on Earth contains a mineral, zircon, that is 4.4 m.y. (found in Australia) 2: Very primitive life forms: one-celled animals, bacteria, jellyfish. |
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What happened during the Paleozoic Era? |
1: Life developed rapidly 2: Marine Plants and invertebrates 3: Fish and ferns 4: amphibians |
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What marks the formation of the super continent in the Paleozoic Era? |
Pangea |
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What happened during the Mesozoic Era (middle life)? |
(1)Life forms increased including: Small mammals Birds Conifers and flowering. (2) Rocks in the Petrified Forest in AZ were deposited during this time. (3) Another mass extinction at the end of Mesozoic |
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What happened in the Cenozoic Era (late life)? |
We are currently in this Era. 1: Development of: Large mammals Human beings 2: Periods of ice ages played a role in the formation of the geological features visible on Earth today. |
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During the Earth's 4.6 billion years, it has suffered how many major mass extinctions? |
5 |
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In which Epoch do we live? |
Halocene |
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The mass extinction that took out dinosaurs is called? |
Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction |
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What is an extinction? |
An extinction is the end of a group of organisms, usually a species. |
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