Paleontology

What do paleontologists study?

• space
• fossils
• atmosphere
• weather

What can we learn from studying fossils?

• how earth's environment has changed
• how hurricanes form
• what causes earthquakes
• how the solar system has changed

A fossil is

• any dead organism
• a copy of a rock
• the preserved remains or traces of an organism
• none of these

Most fossils are formed by

• being preserved in amber
• being frozen
• drying out
• being buried in sediment

How old is the Earth?

• 6,400 year old
• 1 million years old
• 4.6 billion years old
• 65 million years old

According to the law of superposition, what type of organisms would a paleontologist find in the oldest layers of rock?

• simple
• complex
• both simple and complex
• ones that are alive today

What does the principle of uniformatarianism say?

• forces that act to gradually change the Earth's surface today have acted upon the Earth's surface in the past
• layer's of sedimentary rocks contain many fossils
• older rocks are below younger rocks
• the Earth's continents were once joined

When an organism no longer exists on Earth, we say it is

• preserved
• complex
• extinct
• fossilized

A trilobite, which lived during only one era, is a good example of a(n)

• trace fossil
• complex organism
• intrusion
• index fossil

The geologic time scale is a record of

• how quickly fossils form
• how dinosaurs evolved
• the life forms and events of Earth's history
• the thickness of rock layers