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Science slides #1
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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Fossils | The preserved remain of ancient living things |
| catastrophism | The idea that conditions and organisms on earth, change in quick, violent events |
| uniformitarianism | Geologic processes that occur today are similar to those that have occurred 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 | Fossil copy of an organism made when a mold of the organism is filled with sediment or mineral deposits |
| trace fossil | The preserved evidence of the activity of an organism |
| paleontologist | Scientist who study 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 rock |
| unconformity | A surface where rock has eroded away, producing a break, or gap, in the rock record |
| correlation | Matching rocks and fossils from separate locations |
| index fossils | Species that existed on earth for a short length of time, were abundant, and inhabited many locations |
| absolute age | To mean the numerical age, in years, of a rock or object |
| isotopes | Atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons |
| radioactive decay | The process by which an unstable 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 |