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Dating the rock record and reading geologic history quiz - NY Regents quiz

13questions. Pick an answer and you'll see why right away.

  1. By the law of superposition, in an undisturbed sequence of sedimentary layers the oldest layer is:

  2. An igneous intrusion cuts across several rock layers. What does cross-cutting tell you?

  3. An unconformity in the rock record represents:

  4. What is the half-life of a radioactive isotope?

  5. A sample has one-quarter of its original Carbon-14 (half-life 5700 years). How old is it?

  6. A rock contains equal amounts of Uranium-238 and lead-206 (half-life 4.5 billion years). Its age is:

  7. Why can't Carbon-14 be used to date a rock billions of years old?

  8. Which feature makes a fossil a good index fossil?

  9. Finding the same index fossil in two distant rock layers tells you the layers are:

  10. What defines the boundaries between the major eras of the geologic time scale?

  11. About how old is Earth?

  12. Where is the oldest bedrock in New York State generally found?

  13. Marine fossils such as corals and brachiopods across New York are evidence that the state was once: