Name: ______________________________________________________Class Hour: ________
Under Michigan:
The Story of Michigan’s Rocks and Fossils
Guided Reading Worksheet
Answer all questions in your science notebook.
1. What is the world’s largest freshwater lake?
2. Name three processes that left rocks and fossils in Michigan.
3. Name three precious metals found in Michigan.
4. How deep are the layers of rocks and fossils under the middle of the state?
5. How many billion years ago does Michigan’s rock story begin?
6. Where are the oldest rocks in Michigan found?
7. What geologic time interval do we live in?
8. When did the geologic time interval we live in begin?
9. What is the “lost interval?”
10. How old is the megascopic fossil found in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula?
11. How old are some of the igneous rocks found in the western U.P.?
12. How can we tell how old layers of sedimentary rock are?
13. Are there metamorphic rocks in Michigan?
14. When were most of the layers of rocks and fossils under Michigan formed?
15. Where was Michigan millions of years ago?
16. Before Michigan was shaped like a mitten what was it shaped like?
17. What do geologists call Michigan’s bowl shape?
18. What does “outcrop” mean?
19. What hard rock layer is from the Silurian age, about 425 million years ago?
20. Name three places you can see the Niagara Group.
21. If all the water were drained from Lake Huron how high would the rock ridges along the
bottom be? How long are they?
22. How is natural gas formed?
23. How is natural gas used?
24. How did the oil found under Michigan form?
25. How did coal end up under Michigan?
26. Name three places where limestone is mined in Michigan?
27. When did the glaciers begin to form in Michigan?
28. How deep were the glaciers that covered Michigan?
29. List four areas where lobes of the glaciers were found.
30. How many times did the glaciers cover Michigan?
31. How long ago did the glaciers begin to melt?
32. How were the Great Lakes formed?
33. How deep are the loose glacial sediments covering Michigan?
34. How fast is Michigan currently rebounding from the weight of the glaciers?
35. What type of rock is found under Houghton and Musising, Michigan?
36. When was Michinac Island’s famous Arch Rock cut into the landscape?
37. What creature roamed Michigan around 12,000 years ago and is Michigan’s state fossil?
38. How deep are the halite mines below the city of Detroit?
Define the following terms in your science notebook.
Fossil
Geologic History
Relative Dating
Glacier
Era
Epoch
Extinct
Lobe
Coal
Oil