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Stack #200756
Question | Answer |
---|---|
a principle that states that geologic processes that occured in the past can be explained by the current geologic process | uniformitarianism |
a principle that states that geologic changes occurs suddenly | catastrophism |
the scientific study of fossils | paleontology |
any method of determining whether an event or object is older or younger than other events or objects | relitive dating |
a principle that states that younger rocks lie above older rocks if the layers have not been disturbed | superposition |
an arangement of rock layers in wich the oldest rocks are at the bottom | geologic column |
a break in the geologic record created when rock layers are eroded or when sediment is not deposited for a long period of time | unconformity |
any method of measuring the age of an event or object in years | ablolute dating |
an atom that has the same number of protons as other atoms of the same elements | isotope |
the process in which a radioactive isotope tends to break down | radioactive decay |
a meathod of determining the age of an obect | radiometric dating |
the time needed for half of a sample of radioactive substence to undergo radioactive decay | half life |
the trace of an organism that lived long ago | fossil |
a fossilized mark that is formed in soft sediment | trace fossil |
a mark or cavity made in a sedimentary surface | mold |
a type of fossil that forms when sediments fill in the cavity | cast |
fossils of organisms that lived during a relatively short, well-defined geologic time span | index fossils |
is a scale that divides Earth’s 4.6 billion–year history into distinct intervals of time. | geologic time scale |
The largest divisions of geologic time | eon |
the Hadean eon, the Archean eon, the Proterozoic eon, and the Phanerozoic eon | four eons |
a peiriod of time | era |
the third-largest divisions of geologic time | period |
the fourth-largest divisions of geologic time. | epoch |
the death of every organism in a species | extinction |