Question bank: Unit 4 — Dating Planet Earth

Which condition helps a dead organism become a fossil?

Amber is formed from:

Mammoths found preserved with skin and hair were preserved in:

A dinosaur footprint is an example of a:

The impression of the outside surface of a shell preserved in rock is a:

A cast fossil is formed when:

In a petrified fossil, the original tissue is:

The Petrified Forest in Cairo indicates that the region was once:

Fossils of primitive whales in Wadi Al-Hitan (Fayoum) show that the region:

Why are fossils of soft-bodied organisms rare?

In an undisturbed rock sequence, fossils found in the deepest layer belong to organisms that:

A mass extinction is when:

About 66 million years ago a mass extinction wiped out about ... of all species including most dinosaurs.

Which is NOT a suggested cause of mass extinction?

The closest living relative of the extinct mammoth is the:

Geographical isolation can lead to new species because:

Which of the following is an example of a natural barrier causing geographical isolation?

Homologous structures are organs that:

Which pair is an example of homologous structures?

A pterosaur wing, a bat wing and a butterfly wing are:

Two flying organisms have wings: one supported by bones, the other an extension of the exoskeleton. We can infer:

Archaeopteryx is an example of:

Which fossil is best for obtaining intact soft tissue from an extinct organism?

The bones of the reptile jaw evolved into:

The geologic time scale is:

Arranged from the largest to the smallest, the units of geologic time are:

The Phanerozoic Eon includes the eras:

Earth is approximately ... years old.

Granite and metamorphic rocks of the Red Sea mountains indicate that these mountains:

Basalt overlying limestone suggests that:

Marine fossils on high mountain peaks indicate that:

The law of superposition states that in undisturbed sedimentary layers:

An index fossil is a fossil of an organism that:

The same index fossil found in two distant rock layers means the layers:

Which method gives the age of a rock in years?

The half-life of a radioactive element is the time for:

A rock sample contains 50% of the original amount of a radioactive element. How many half-lives have passed?

The fraction of a radioactive element remaining after 3 half-lives is:

In an undisturbed sequence a dinosaur fossil is in a lower layer X and a mammal fossil in an upper layer Y. What can be concluded?