Chapter 3/Chapter 13
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Test Review & Study Guide
Complete the following review to help you prepare for the test. Don’t forget to review your textbook,
activities/labs and handouts also. This sheet is due on the day of the test.
1. How is a fossil defined?
2. What are the different types of fossils?
3. How are each type formed?
4. Describe the steps in the formation a mold and cast fossils.
5. What type of rock are fossils usually found in? Why?
6. What conditions help preserve organisms as fossils?
7. If marine fossils are found in areas that are not near the ocean, what does this tell scientists?
8. What is the name of the most recent era? The earliest era?
9. What is an index fossil? What information does it give to geologists?
10. Which life forms developed early in the Earth’s history?
11. Which life forms developed in the most recent eon?
12. What information does relative age give scientists?
13. Which is older: a fossil that is 400 million years old or a fossil that is 500 years old?
14. How are fossils used to age rock layers?
15. What information does absolute age give scientists?
16. What is the Principle of Superposition?
17. Put the layers and faults in order of formation:
18.
19. Einsteinium-253 has a half life of 20 days. If you had a 100 gram sample, how much
Einsteinium-253 would remain after 60 days?
20. How do we know that life has changed over time?
21. What is natural selection?
22. Why is natural selection sometimes called “survival of the fittest”?
23. What is evolution?
24. What is a homologous structure?
25. What is variation in a population of living things?
26. How do Darwin’s and Lamark’s theories of how life has changed over time differ?
27. Use the geologic timeline below to answer the following questions.
a) Which eon do we currently live in?
b) What information is used to divide time into segments into the geologic timeline?
c) Which era do we live in?
d) If you found a fossil in the Permian period, would it be younger or older than a fossil found
in the Triassic period? How do you know?
e) Identify the eon and era the Devonian period is in. What eon and era would we find the
Cretaceous period?