What must be true about an index fossil?
A useful index fossil must be distinctive or easily recognizable, abundant, and have a wide geographic distribution and a short range through time. Index fossils are the basis for defining boundaries in the geologic time scale and for the correlation of strata.
How do index fossils relate to absolute age?
Index fossils are fossils of organisms that lived during only one short period of time. A layer rock with an index fossil in it is close in age to another layer of rock with the same type of index fossil in it. Even though rock layers are of different regions, index fossils indicates that the layers are close in age.
What is an index fossil What do index fossils reveal about other material found with them?
Index fossils represent species that lived for a short period of time but over a wide geographic range. Index fossils can help determine the relative ages of rock layers and their fossils.
What makes index fossils useful in identifying the relative age of rock?
Certain fossils, called index fossils, help geologists match rock layers. To be useful as an index fossil, a fossil must be widely distributed and represent a type of organism that existed for a brief time period. Index fossils are useful because they tell the relative ages of the rock layers in which they occur.
What is an index fossil quizlet?
Index Fossil. a fossil known to have lived in a particular geologic age that can be used to date the rock layer in which it is found. Order of Rock Layers.
What are the characteristics of an index fossil quizlet?
The four main characteristics that make a fossil a good index fossil are that the fossil is abundant, widespread, distintive and it has to be limited in geologic time.
How are index fossils used to determine the age of fossils or rock layers quizlet?
Index fossils are fossils of organisms that lived over a wide area and existed for just a short period of time. Index fossils help scientists match rock layers. Two rock layers in different places that contain the same index fossil are about the same age.
What can an index fossil be used to determine?
Index fossils are of organisms that lived over a wide area. They lived for a fairly short period of time. An index fossil allows a scientist to determine the age of the rock it is in.
What does an index fossil indicate?
Keyed to the relative time scale are examples of index fossils, the forms of life which existed during limited periods of geologic time and thus are used as guides to the age of the rocks in which they are preserved.
What do index fossils determine quizlet?
Scientists use index fossils to determine the relative ages of the rock layers in which they occur. Index fossils are fossils of organisms that lived over a wide area and existed for just a short period of time.
What best describes an index fossil quizlet?
Fossil that defines and identifies geologic periods, often in only one layer of rock. Characteristics of index fossils: Easily recognizable, short lived (found only in a few layers of rock worldwide), wide distribution (geographic range).
Which of these is a characteristic of an index fossil?
Characteristics of index fossils: Easily recognizable, short lived (found only in a few layers of rock worldwide), wide distribution (geographic range).