Download Fossil-GeotimeReviewGuide

Name: ________________________________
Fossils & Geologic Time Test Review
1. What is a fossil?
2. What is an index fossil? (Hint, know the 3 criterions to be an index fossil)
3. Layers of which type of rocks show relative age?
4. In petrified wood, how much of the original wood is left?
5. What was the first life on Earth like according to the rock and fossil record?
6. Perfectly preserved animal remains are what types of fossils?
7. The rate or speed of radioactive materials (isotopes) breaking down is measured in what?
8. Rocks fossils only form in this type of rock:
9. According to radiometric age dating, how old is the Earth? (don’t forget your units!)
10. What is the Principle of Superposition? – Also, draw an example to illustrate this principle.
11. After an animal dies, the amount of Carbon-14 in it will do what?
12. What makes up elements? (circle one) – minerals
rocks
atoms
neutrons
12. Does relative age dating give exact ages?
13. If you start with a sample that has 600 nuclei of Uranium-238, how much will be left after 1 halflife?
13a. What percentage will be left if there is only 37.5 nuclei of Uranium -238 left?
14. Could cow poop become a fossil?
15. What is radiometric age dating?
16. Who proposed continental drift and how were fossils used to help prove that theory?
List and explain at least two examples of fossils that this person looked at.
17. You and your younger sibling come across a sample of basalt (igneous rock). Explain to them why
you will never find a fossil in it, or any other igneous rock.
18. Know the difference between a cast and a mold.
19. Which evolved first, fish or dinosaurs? How do you know? Discuss the differences between the
two to explain your answer.
20. Name two types of fossils besides original remains.
21. In the penny lab, you had “heads” and “tails” sides of pennies. Explain which ones were the
“parents” and which ones where the “daughter”(decayed) isotopes.
Extra Credit:
Be able to label a diagram that shows the sequencing of events in a rock layer.
F
1st_____
2nd_____
3rd_____
4th_____
5th______
6th______