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Earth's History
Unit 7
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Uniformitarianism | A principle that geologic processes that occurred in the past can be explained by current geologic processes. |
| Fossil | The trace or remains of an organism that lived long ago, most commonly preserved in sedimentary rock. |
| Trace Fossil | A fossilized structure, such as a footprint or a coprolite, that formed in sedimentary rock by animal activity on or within soft sediment. |
| Climate | The weather conditions in an area over a long period of time. |
| Ice Core | A long cylinder of ice obtained from drilling through ice caps ir ice sheet; used to study past climates. |
| Relative Dating | Any method of determining whether an event or object is older or younger than other events or objects. |
| Superposition | A principle that states that younger rocks lie above older rocks if the layers have not been disturbed. |
| Unconformity | A break in the geologic record created when rock layers are eroded or when sediment is not deposited for a long period of time. |
| Geologic Column | An ordered arrangement of rock layers that is based on the relative ages of the rocks and in which the oldest rocks are at the bottom. |
| Absolute Dating | Any method of measuring the age of an event or object in years. |
| Radioactive Decay | The process in which a radioactive isotope tends to break down into a stable isotope of the same element or another element. |
| Half-Life | The time required for half of a sample of a radioactive isotope to break down by radioactive decay to form a daughter isotope. |
| Radiometric Dating | A method of determining the absolute age of an abject by comparing the relative percentages of a radioactive parent isotope and a stable daughter isotope. |