Geological Time and Fossil Vocabulary

the preserved remains or traces of an organism that lived in the past.

• Trace fossil

• Fossil

• Index Fossil

• Petrified fossil

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-1

forms when organisms or parts, like leaves, flowers, fish, are pressed between layers of soft mud or clay that hardens squeezing almost all the decaying organism away leaving the carbon imprint in the rock.

• carbonized fossil

• preserved fossil

• cast fossil

• mold fossil

forms when a mold is filled with sand or mud that hardens into the shape of the organism

• mold fossil

• index fossil

• cast fossil

• trace fossil

a fossil known to have lived in a particular geologic age and over a wide region that can be used to date the rock layer in which it is found.

• mold fossil

• fossil

• Geological Time

• Index fossil

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-4

forms when sediments bury an organism and the sediments change into rock; the organism decays leaving a cavity in the shape of the organism.

• mold fossil

• carbonized fossil

• trace fossil

• fossil

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-1

forms when minerals soak into the buried remains, replacing the remains, and changing them into rock.

• Petrified fossil

• Sedimentary rock

• Carbonized fossil

• Trace fossil

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-1

forms when entire organisms or parts of organisms are prevented from decaying by being trapped in rock, ice, tar, or amber

• Mold fossil

• Cast fossil

• Index fossil

• Perserved fossil

forms when the mud or sand hardens to stone where a footprint, trail, or burrow of an organism was left behind.

• Cast Fossil

• Trace Fossil

• Fossil

• Sedimentary rock

a long distinct geologic time period defined by a particular feature or characteristic, often a mass extinction.

• Era

• Geological Time Scale

• Fossil record

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-4

A record of major events from the beginning of Earth to present time

• Geological Time scale

• Index fossil

• Fossil record

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-4

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3