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Meteorology
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Term | Definition |
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Amber | hard translucent fossilized resin produced by extinct coniferous trees of the Tertiary period, typically yellowish in color. |
Fossil | the remains or impression of a prehistoric organism preserved in petrified form or as a mold or cast in rock. |
Cast | an object made by shaping molten metal or similar material in a mold |
Index Fossil | a fossil that is useful for dating and correlating the strata in which it is found. |
Mold | a hollow container used to give shape to molten or hot liquid material (such as wax or metal) when it cools and hardens. |
Permineralization | a process of fossilization in which mineral deposits form internal casts of organisms |
Trace fossil | a fossil of a footprint, trail, burrow, or other trace of an animal rather than of the animal itself. |
Cross-cutting Relationships | an igneous intrusion is always younger than the rock it cuts across |
Geologic time | a system of chronological measurement that relates stratigraphy to time, |
Lateral Continuity | states that layers of sediment initially extend laterally in all directions; in other words, they are laterally continuous |
Original horizontality | states that layers of sediment are originally deposited horizontally under the action of gravity |
Relative Age | common practice for dating rocks and strata |
Half-life | the time taken for the radioactivity of a specified isotope to fall to half its original value |
Ice core | is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet |
Isotope | each of two or more forms of the same element that contain equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, |
Radiometric dating | a method of dating geological or archeological specimens by determining the relative proportions of particular radioactive isotopes present in a sample. |
Differentiation | the action or process of differentiating. |
Outgassing | release or give off as a gas or vapor. |
Supercontinent | each of several large landmasses thought to have divided to form the present continents in the geological past. |
Pangaea | a hypothetical supercontinent that included all current land masses |
Orogeny | a process in which a section of the earth's crust is folded and deformed by lateral compression to form a mountain range. |
Evolution | the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form. |
Natural Selection | the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring |