1. The Rock and Fossil Record

2. Uniformitarianism - proposed by James Hutton - states that Earths landscape is constantly changing due to the same geologic process that have happened throughout time (weathering, erosion, deposition)

3. Catastrophism - states that all geologic change occurs suddenly due to huge catastrophes - Now we know geologic change is a combination of both

4. Relative Dating - to determine if something is older or younger than something else

5. Superposition - young rocks lie above older rocks in an undisturbed sequence - however due to disturbances such as folding, tilting, faults, intrusions, not always in a nice horizontal layer

6. Superposition

9. Geologic Column

10. Folding

12. Tilting

14. Faults

16. Intrusions

18. Geologic Column -Geologists have combined data from all the known undisturbed rock sequences around the world to come up with this - it is the ideal sequence of rock layers that contains all the known fossils and rock formations on Earth, use it to interpret rock sequences by comparing it to disturbed rock sequence

19. Geologic Column

20. Unconformity - gaps in rock layer sequence caused by erosion or nondeposition.

21. Unconformity

23. FOSSILS - any naturally preserved evidence of life - rock fossils, petrifaction, amber fossils, mummification, frozen fossils, fossils in tar.

24. Rock Fossils

25. Petrified Wood

26. Amber Fossils

27. Mummification

28. Frozen Fossils

29. Tar Pit Fossils

30. Trace Fossils – preserved evidence of an animals activity (footprints, coprolites)

31. Trace Fossils

32. Coprolites

33. Mold – a cavity where an organism was buried, but decayed

34. Mold

35. Cast – when a mold gets filled in with sediment and becomes a fossil

36. Cast

37. Absolute Dating – how to establish the actual age of an object.

38. Radiometric Dating – by knowing the rate of radioactive decay, you can figure out the age of a rock. (Uranium-lead, potassium-argon, carbon-14)

39. Radiometric dating

40. Carbon 14 Dating

41. Index Fossils – if they know when one of the organism lived, can date the layer it was found in to date unknown fossils.

42. Index Fossils

43. The Geologic Time Scale - divides Earths 4.6 billion year history into distinct time intervals. - the divisions are eons, era, periods and epochs.

44. Geologic Time Scale

45. Paleozoic Era – “Old Life” - started with no land organisms, then came plants, amphibians and insects. At the end came a mass extinction when 90% of all species perished. 1. Grand Canyon formed 2. Trilobites in sea, land plants 3. Coral reefs, insects and fish

46. Paleozoic Era

47. Mesozoic Era : Middle Life” - the age of reptiles, when dinosaurs existed, birds and small mammals began to evolve. - At the end, 50% of the species became extinct, including dinos. 4. Pterosaurs appear, conifers develop 5. Reptiles develop 6. Dinosaurs abundant

48. Mesozoic Era

49. Cenozoic Era “ recent life” era we live in, the age of mammals, many now extinct 7. Flowering plants and mammals appear 8. Rhinos and birds appear 9. Mammoths and humans appear.

50. Cenozoic Era