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26 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
uniformitarianism
the principle that earth's landforms are being constantly changed by the same geological forces that have been at work since the beginning of time.
Catastrophism
the principle that all of Earth's landforms were formed suddenly by catastrophic events
James Hutton
created the principal of uniformitarianism in 1795
superpostion
the principal that states that rock layers are in order of age, youngest sediment are the topmost layers and older sediment are bottommost layers
Charles Lyell
wrote and published the volumes titled Principles of geography
relative dating
figuring out whether an object is older or younger than another object
geologic column
the ideal sequence of rock layers that contains all rock layers know to man in superpostion and without any unconformities
absolute dating
the process of determining the age of an object, such as a rock layer or fossil, by fiquring out the number of years it has existed
isotopes
atoms of the same element with the same number of protons but different number of nuetrons
radioactive decay
when a radioactive isotopes of one element decay into stable elements of another element
radiometric dating
determining the absolute age of a sample based on the ratio of parent material to daughter material
half-life
the time it takes for one half of a radioactive sample to decay
fossil
naturally preserved evidence of life
permineralization
a process in which minerals fill in the pore spaces of an organism's tissues- minerals can also replace the original tissues of the organisms
petrification
when organisms tissues are completely replaced by minerals
trace fossil
any naturally preserved evidence of an animal's activity
coprolites
preserved animal feces
mold
cavity in the gorund or rock where a plant or animal was buried, it leaves a cast of the original organism
cast
an object created when sediment fills a mold and becomes rock- shows what the outside of the organism looked like
index fossil
fossils of organisms that lived for a relatively short, well defined time span
geologic time scale
a scale that divides Earth's history into distinct periods of time
eon
largest division of geologic time
era
second largest division of geologic time
period
third largest division of geologic time
epoch
fourth largest division of geologic time
unconformity
a surface that represents a gap in the geologic time column