Biology Chapter 17 Vocabulary

Scientist who studies fossils. Michael Creighton Chpt. 17 vocab 4-20-2011 Biology 8

Information about past life, including the structure of organisms, what they ate, what ate them, in what environment they lived, and the order in which they lived. M.C.

Term used to refer to a species that has died out. M.C.

Method of determining the age of a fossil by comparing its placement with that of fossils in other layers of rock. M.C.

Distinctive fossil used to compare the relative ages of fossils. M.C.

Length of time required for half of the radioactive atoms in a sample to decay. M.C.

Technique in which scientists of remaining radioactive isotopes it contains. M.C.

Scale used by paleontologists to represent evolutionary time. M.C.

One of several subdivisions of the time between the Precambrian and the present. M.C.

Unit of time into which eras are subdivided M.C.

Tiny bubble, formed of large organic molecules, that has some characteristics of a cell. M.C.

Microscopic fossil M.C.

Theory that eukaryotic cells formed from a symbiosis among several different prokaryotic organisms. M.C.

Event in which many types of living things become extinct at the same time. M.C.

Large-scale evolutionary changes that take place over long periods of time. M.C.