Biology Chapter 17 Vocab Words

Biology Chapter 17 Vocab Words

19 cards   |   Total Attempts: 182
  

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Paleontologist
Scientist who studies fossils.
Fossil Record
Information about past life, including the structure of organism, what they ate, what ate them, in what environment they lived, and the order in which they lived.
Extinct
Term used to refer to a species that has died out.
Relative Dating
Method of determining the age of a fossil by comparing its placement with that of fossils in other layers of rock.
Index Fossil
Distinctive fossil used to compare the relative ages of fossils.
Half-Life
Length of time required for half of the radioactive atoms in a sample to decay.
Radioactive Dating
Technique in which scientists calculate the age of a sample.
Geologic Time Scale
To represent evolutionary time.
Era
Divide the time between the Precambrian and the present into three eras.
Periods
Unit of time into which eras are subdivided.
Proteinoid Microsphere
Tiny bubble, formed of large organic molecules, that has some characteristics of a cell.
Mirco-Fossil
Microscopic fossil.
Endosymbiotic Theory
Theory that eukaryotic cells formed from a symbiosis among several different prokaryotic organisms.
Mass Extinction
Event in which many types of living things become extinct at the same time.
Marcroevolution
Large-scale evolutionary changes that take place over long periods of time.