Ch 17 The History of Life
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19 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 paleontologist | scientists who study fossils |
| fossil record | information about past life, including the structure or organisms, what they ate, what ate them, in what environment they lived, and the order in which they lived |
| extinct | term used to refer to a species from all parts of its geographical range |
| relative dating | method of determining the age of a fossil by comparing its placement whi that of fossils in other layers of rock |
| index fossil | distinctive fossil used to compare the relative ages of fossils |
| half-life | length of time reuired for half of the radioactive atoms in a sample to decay |
| radioactive dating | technique in which scientists calculate the age of a sample based on the amount of remaining radioactive isotopes it contains |
| geologic time scale | scale used by paleontologists to represent evolutionary time |
| era | one of several subdivisions of the time between the Precambrian and the present |
| period | unit of time into which eras are subdivided |
| macroevolution | large-scale evolutionary patterns and processes that occur over long periods of time |
| mass extinction | event in which many types of living things become extinct at the same time |
| endosymbiotic theory | theory that eukaryotic cells formed from a symbiosis among several different prokaryotic organisms |
| microfossil | microscopic fossil |
| proteinoid microsphere | Tiny bubble, formed of large organic molecule, that has some characteristics of a cell |
| adaptive radiation | process by which a single species or small group of species evolves into several different forms that live in different ways; rapid growth in the diversity of a group of organisms |
| convergent evolution | process by which unrelated organisms independently evolve similarities when adapting to similar environments |
| coevolution | process by which two species evolve in response to changes in each other |
| punctuated equilibrium | pattern of evolution in which long stable period are interrupted by brief periods of more rapid change |
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