click below
click below
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Chapter 10
| Fossil | The preserved remains of an ancient animal. |
| Catastrophism | The idea that conditions and organisms on Earth change in quick, violent events. |
| Uniformitarianism | The geologic processes that occur today are similar to those that have occurred in the past. |
| Carbon film | The fossilized carbon outlined of an organism or part of an organism. |
| Mold | The impression in a rock left by an ancient organism. |
| Cast | A fossil copy filled with sediment or mineral deposits. |
| Trace fossil | The preserved evidence of the activity of an organism. |
| Paleontologist | Scientists that 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 older rock that becomes part of 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 Fossil | Species that existed on the 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. |
| Isotope | Atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. |
| Radioactive decay | It is the process by which an unstable element naturally changes into another stable element. |
| Half-life | The time required for half of the parent isotopes to decay into daughter isotopes. |