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Clues to earths past
Vocabulary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| fossils | are the preserved remains or evidence of ancient living things. |
| catastrophism | is 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 occurred in the past. |
| carbon film | is the fossilized carbon outline of an organism or part of an organism. |
| mold | is the impression in a rock left by an ancient organism. |
| cast | is a fossil copy of an organism made when a mold of the organism is filled with sediment or mineral deposits. |
| trace fossil | is the preserved evidence of the activity of an organism. |
| paleontologist | scientist who study fossils . |
| relative age | is the age of rocks and geologic features compared with other rocks and features nearby. |
| superposition | is 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 | is a surface where rock has eroded away,producing a break,or gap,in the rock record. |
| correlation | matching rocks and fossils from separate locations. |
| fossils | represent species that existed on earth for a short length of time,were abundant,and inhabited many locations. |
| absolute age | to mean the numerical ,in years,of a rock or object. |
| isotopes | are atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. |
| radioactive decay | is the process by which an unstable element naturally changes into another element that is stable. |
| half-life | is the time required for half of the parent isotopes to decay into daughter isotopes |