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Science Vocab
Chapter 4-Views of Earth's Past
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Fossils | Traces or remains of living things of living things from long ago |
Original Remains | Fossils that are the actual bodies or body parts of organisms |
Ice Core | A tubular sample that shows the layers of snow and ice that have built up over thousands of years |
Relative Age | The age of an event or object in relation to other events or objects |
Index Fossils | Fossils of organisms that were common, that lived in many areas, and that existed only during specific spans of time |
Absolute Age | The actual age of an event or object |
Half-Life | The length of time it takes for half of the atoms in a sample of a radioactive element to change from an unstable form into another form |
Uniformitarianism | The idea that Earth is an always changing place and that the same forces of change at work today were at work in the past |
Geologic Time Scale | A chart that divides history into intervals or time defined by major events or changes on Earth |