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Geological History
Unit 6 vocab
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Fossil | A remain, imprint, or trace of prehistoric life |
Index Fossil | Remains of once-living things from millions of years ago |
Permineralized Remains | Fossils filled with minerals from groundwater |
Molds and Casts | A type of body fossil |
Original Remains | Still-existing fossils of prehistoric animals |
Trace Fossils | Fossil consisting of imprint or track of an organism |
Relative Age | Age of something compared with other things |
Superposition | Order of sedimentary strata |
Horizontality | The layers in the soil |
Absolute Age | Age in years of a rock or other object |
Half-life | The time taken for half the atoms in an isotope to decay |
Isotopes | Amounts of the same elements with different numbers of neutrons |
Radioactive Decay | Process where some isotopes break into smaller isotopes |
Geological Time | The division in Earth's history |
Eon | The longest subdivision in geological time |
Era | Subdivided into periods |
Period | Characterized by types of life that existed worldwide |
Epoch | Characterized by differences in life-forms |
Pangaea | The world when dinosaurs roamed the Earth |
Trilobite | Organism with 3-lobed exoskeleton |
Precambrian | Longest part of Earth's history |
Mesozoic Era | The time of the dinosaurs |
Cenozoic Era | The time of the first humans |