Ch.4 A Trip Through Geologic Time

What are fossils?

• molds and casts of organisms that live today

• drawings of ancient animals that live today

• footprints or burrows of small animals that live today

• the preserved remains or traces of organism that lived in the past

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What has the study of fossils allowed scientists to do?

• describe past environments and the history of life

• study present ocean temperatures at different depth

• analyze the chemical compositions of sedimentary rocks and minerals

• predict which organisms will become extinct in the future

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The relative age of a rock is

• its age compared with the ages of other rocks

• less than the age of the fossils the rock contains

• the number of years since the rock formed

• its age based on how much carbon-14 the rock contains

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The time it takes for half of the radioactive atoms in a sample of a radioactive element to decay is the element's

• relative age

• potassium-argon date

• absolute age

• half-life

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Geologists use radioactive dating to

• determine the relative ages of rock layers

• tell the difference between molds and casts

• tell where one soil horizon ends and the next on begins

• determine the absolute ages of rocks

During the Cambrian Explosion that began the Paleozoic Era, the many new forms of life that evolved

• lived on land

• were invertebrates that lived in the sea

• were vertebrates covered with scales or fur

• were single-celled

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Earth's earliest atmosphere lacked which gas that is necessary for life as we know it to exist today?

• nitrogen

• carbon dioxide

• argon

• oxygen

During the Paleozoic, the first organisms to live partly on land were

• insects

• reptiles

• amphibians

• invertebrates

Late in the Paleozoic Era, the supercontinent Pangaea formed. The climate in the center of Pangaea was probably a(n)

• extremely cold, polar climate

• hot, dry desert climate

• wet tropical climate

• warm, mild climate

Which best describes the climate of Europe and North America during the 1.8 million years of the Quaternary Period.

• hot and dry climates

• cool and rainy periods followed by droughts

• warm and mild climates

• a series of ices ages followed by periods when the glaciers melted

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