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Flashy Fossils 7092A
Fossil Definitions
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Fossil | remains, imprints, or traces of prehistoric organisms that can tell when and where organisms once lives and how they lived. |
| permineralized remains | fossils in which the spaces inside are filled with minerals from ground water. |
| carbon film | thin film of carbon residue pre serves as a fossil. |
| mold | a type of body fossil that forms in rock when an organism with hard parts is buried, decays , or dissolves, and leaves a cavity in the rock. |
| cast | a type of body fossil that forms when crystals fill a mold or sediments wash into a mold and harden into rock. |
| index fossil | remains of species that existed on earth for a relatively short period of time were abundant and widespread geographically, and can be used by geologists to assign the ages of rock layers. |
| principle of superpostition | states that in undisturbed rock layers, the oldest rocks are on the bottom and the rocks become progressively younger toward the top. |
| relative age | the age of something compared with other things. |
| unconfromity | gap in the rock layer that is due to erosion or periods without any deposition. |
| absolute age | age, in years, of a rock or other object; can be determined by using properties of the atoms that make up materials. |
| radioactive decay | process in which some isotapes break down into other isotapes and particles. |
| half-life | time it takes for half the atoms af an isotape to decay. |
| uniformitarianism | princliple stating that Earth processes occuring today are similar to those that occured in the past. |
| rodioactive dating | process used to calculate the absolute age of rock by measuring the ratio of a parent isotape to daughter product in an mineral knowing the half-life of the parent. |