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science chapter 10
flashcards chapter 10 lesson 1, 2 and 3
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| fossils | the preserved remains or evidence of ancient living things |
| catastrophism | the idea that conditions and organisms on Earth change in quick, violent events |
| uniformitarianism | states that geologic processes that occur today are similar to those that have ocurred in the past |
| carbon film | the fossilized carbon outline of an organism or part of an organism |
| mold | the impression in a rock left by an ancient organism |
| cast | a fossil copy of an organism made when a mold of the organism is filed with sediment or mineral deposits |
| trace fossil | the preserved evidence of the activity of an organism |
| paleontologists | scientists who studies fossils |
| relative age | the age of rocks and geologic features compared with other rocks and features nearby |
| superposition | the principle that in undisturbed rock layers, the oldest rocks are on the bottom |
| inclusion | a piece of an older rock that becomes part of a new rlock |
| unconformity | a surface where rock has eroded away, producting a break, or gap, in the rock record |
| correlation | matching rocks and fossils from separate locations |
| index fossils | represent species that existed on Earth for a short length of time, were abundant, and inhabited many locations |
| absolute age | the numerical age, in years, of a rock or object |
| isotopes | are atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons |
| radioactive decay | the process in which an unstble element naturally changes into another element that is stable |
| half-life | the time required for half of the parent isotopes to decay into daughter isotopes |