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Chapter 10
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| fossil | the preserved remains or evidence of ancient living things |
| catastrophisim | The idea that conditions and organisms on earth change in quick,violent events |
| trace fossil | the preserved evidence of the activity of an organism |
| uniformitarianism | states that geologic processes that occur today are similar to those that have occurred in the past |
| mold | The impression in a rock left by an ancient organism |
| carbon fill | the fossilized carbon outline of an organism or part of an organism |
| cast | a fossil copy of an organism made when a mold of the organism is filled with sediment or mineral deposits |
| paleontologists | scientists who study fossils |
| absolute age | the numerical age in years of a rock or object |
| unconformity | A surface where rock has eroded away, producing a break or a gap in the rock record |
| inclusion | A piece of an older rock that becomes a part of a new rock |
| correlation | matching rocks and fossils from separate locations |
| superposition | the principal that in undisturbed rocks layers the oldest rocks are on the bottom |
| relative age | the age of rocks and geologic features compared with other rocks and features nearby |
| half life | the time required for half of the parent isotopes to decay into daughter isotopes |
| isotope | 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 |