What is a fossil?
A fossil is the remains or impressions of a plant or animal made in hard rock preserved by nature.
What is a body fossil?
A body fossil is the actual parts of an organism’s body that has been fossilized. Body fossils include skin, bones, teeth, leaves, wood, bark, and egg remains.
What is a trace fossil?
A trace fossil is fossilized evidence of the things made by an organism, such as footprints, waste materials, burrows, mounds, or other structures.
What is an index fossil?
An index fossil is any animal or plant remains or impression that is preserved in the rock record that is characteristic of a specific span of geological time or the environment on Earth.
What are strata?
Strata are horizontal layers of rock or sediment that are different on some characteristic than other strata in adjacent layers.
What is the lithosphere?
The lithosphere of Earth is the solid, outer part that includes the upper part of the mantle and the crust.
What are the tectonic plates?
The tectonic plates divide Earth’s crust into distinct sections that are moving very slowly. These plates make up the lithosphere. There are seven major tectonic plates on Earth.
What is a continent?
The continents are the major landmasses on Earth. There are seven continents including, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. India is considered to be a subcontinent since it is situated on a different tectonic plate than surrounding areas.
What is a supercontinent?
Supercontinents are large landmasses that merged most of the major continents in the past geological history of Earth. Over time, the supercontinents broke apart into the smaller continents due to plate tectonics.
What was Pangea?
Pangea was a supercontinent that existed on Earth about 200 million years ago. All the major continents and the India subcontinent were connected by land into a single landmass during this time.
What is continental drift?
Continental drift is a theory speculated by Alfred Wegener that proposed that the continents on Earth have changed their positions relative to each other over long periods of time. The plate tectonics sciences have integrated and provided an explanation Wegener’s original hypothesis.
What is carbon-14 dating?
Carbon-14 dating is a method used to find the age of organic matter using the nuclear decay of the radioactive isotope of carbon that has a half-life of about 5,700 years. This method can accurately date matter up to about 25,000 years old.
What is nuclear decay?
Nuclear decay is the process by which the unstable nucleus of an atom loses energy. As a result, the atom is changed into a different atom with a different atomic number.
What is fission track dating?
Fission track dating is a process in which the uranium content of a material is measured to determine the age of some matter. Fission track dating can effectively date matter to billions of years.
What does extinct mean?
Extinct means a species has been terminated or eliminated from Earth.
What is the Law of Superposition?
This law states that the oldest layer of sedimentary rock is below younger layers of sedimentary rock. This assumes that no uplift or subduction has occurred in the rock layers.
What is paleontology?
Paleontology is the science of studying geological history based on the fossil record.
What is sedimentary rock?
Sedimentary rocks are formed from pieces of once-living organisms or pieces of other rocks that have deposited in an area. These rocks are typically formed near or at Earth’s surface. Sediments deposited from multiple sources are pressed together over time to form the rock.
How is geological time measured?
Geological time is measured in two major ways; a relative time scale based on fossil records, and a radiometric time scale based on the radioactivity of chemical elements found in rocks.
What is climate change?
Climate change is the long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall, and other meteorological factors that lead to changes in the weather of an area.
What are the types of climate on Earth?
There are five main types of climate on Earth. They are tropical, dry, temperate, continental, and polar. A polar desert climate is characterized by very cold winters, treeless tundra, glaciers, and a permanent layer of ice or snow covering most of the land.
What is albedo?
Albedo is a measure of the reflectivity of a given material.
What is the Wilson cycle?
The Wilson cycle describes the assembly, break-up, and reassembly of the continents on Earth.
Here are some definitions to help you with your Lesson 1 investigation.
Fossil – the remains or impressions of a plant or animal made in hard rock preserved by nature
Soil – the part of the solid land that supports growth of organisms and is made up of organic and inorganic matter, liquids, and gases
Layers – one thickness of rock or soil laid over another thickness of rock or soil that is different in some way
Lithosphere – the outermost layer of Earth (crust)
Carbon-14 Dating – a method of dating the remains of living things that died around 25,000 years ago
Fission Track Dating – a method of dating the remains of living things that died billions of years ago
Climate – the long-term average of weather in a given region of Earth
Climate Change – how the climate differs in an area over time
Ecosystems – the biological community of living organisms found in an area and their surrounding environment
Antarctica – the southernmost continent on Earth
Continent – one of seven large landmasses found on Earth
Continental Drift – the movement of Earth’s lithospheric plates under the continents
Paleontology – the science of studying geological history based on the fossil record
Reflect – to bounce off
Absorb – to take in
Five hundred million years ago the continents on Earth looked very different than today. In this investigation, you’ll hunt for fossils to determine where the continents were and how their past climate differed from today’s climate. Get ready to hunt for fossils with your virtual rock hammer.
