science test ch.6
Terms
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- index fossil
- fossills of widely distributed organisms that lived during only one short period
- paleontologist
- a scientist who studies fossils to learn about organisms that lives long ago
- igneous rock
- a type of rock that forms from the cooling of molten rock at or below the surface
- cast
- a fossil that is a copy of an organism's shape, formed when minerals seep into a mold
- vertebrate
- an animal with a backbone
- rock
- the material that forms Earth's hard surface
- pangaea
- formed during the permian period
- fault
- a break or crack in Earth's lithosphere along which the rocks move
- unconformity
- a place where an old, eroded rock surface is in contanct with a newer rock layer
- mammal
- an endothermic vertebrate with a four-chambered heat, skin covered with fur or hair, and has young fed with milk from the mother's body
- era
- one of the three long units of geologic time between the Precambrian and the Present
- petrified fossil
- a fossil in which minerals replace all or part of an organism
- absolute age
- the age of a rock given as the number of years since the rock formed
- invertebrate
- an animal that does not have a backbone
- geologic time scale
- a record of the geologic events and life forms in Earth's history
- relative age
- the age of a rock compared to the ages of rock layers
- period
- one of the units of geologic time into which geologists divide eras
- carbon film
- a type of fossil consisting of an extremely thin coating of carbon on rock
- intrusion
- an igneous rock layer formed when magma hardens beneath Earth's interior
- sedimentary rock
- a type of rock that forms when particles from other rocks or the remains of plants and animals are pressed and cememted together
- amphibian
- an ectothermic vertebrate that spends its early life in water and its adulthood on land, returning to water to reproduce
- rock cycle
- a series of processes on the surface and inside Earch that slowly change rocks from one kind to another
- law of superposition
- the geologic principle that states that in horizontal layers of sedimentary rock, each layer is older than the layer above it and younger than the layer below it
- mold
- a fossil formed when an organism buried in sediment dissolves, leaving a hollow area
- mass extinction
- when many types of living tings become extinct at the same time
- epochs
- subdivisions of the periods of the geologic time scale
- mesozoic era
- age of dinosaurs; mammals began to evolve
- paleozoic era
- mostly animals without backbones
- cenozoic era
- most recent; age of mammals
- preserved remains
- tar, frozen, amber
- metamorphic rock
- a type of rock that forms from an existing rock that is changed by heat, pressure, or chemical reactions
- reptile
- an exothermic vertebrate with lungs and scaly skin; lays eggs with tough, leathery shells
- extrusion
- an igneous rock layer formed when lava flows onto Earth's surface and hardens
- trace fossils
- a type of fossil that provides evidence of the activites of ancient organisms
- extinction at mesozoic
- extinction of dinosaurs created an opening for mammals