Eduqas A-Level Geology Time, past life and past climates overview quiz quiz

Superposition

Cross-cutting relationships

Lateral continuity

Included fragments

Older than all of beds A, B and C together

Younger than A and B but older than C

Younger than all three of the beds it touches

Exactly the same relative age as bed B

It coarsens upwards, so the coarse end always marks the original top of the bed

It has no consistent direction at all, so it cannot indicate way-up

It fines upwards, so the fine end is the original top

It always lies perfectly vertically regardless of way-up

A full one half

One eighth

None at all

One quarter

2.6 billion years

1.3 billion years

3.9 billion years

5.2 billion years

Its half-life is far too long, so the parent isotope barely decays at all over the whole of geological time

Its half-life (about 5,730 years) is so short that almost none remains after roughly 60,000 years

It does not occur naturally anywhere on Earth, so there is nothing to measure

It can only ever be used to date igneous and metamorphic rocks, never organic material

A large body size and a thick, robust shell that preserves easily

A long stratigraphic time range together with a narrow local distribution

Wide geographical distribution and a short stratigraphic (time) range

Being soft-bodied, rare and difficult to find in the rock record

A body fossil

A cast

An index fossil

A trace fossil

Punctuated equilibrium

Phyletic gradualism

Catastrophism theory

Strict uniformitarianism

Thick coal seams formed in tropical swamps

A worldwide iridium-rich clay layer

Widespread evaporite deposits such as rock salt

Banded iron formations laid down in the oceans

Coal seams from tropical swamps

Glacial tillite with striated clasts

Evaporites (rock salt and gypsum)

Warm-water reef limestone

A set of completely unrelated beds separated by many major angular unconformities

Always a regression, never a transgression of any kind

Direct evidence of regional metamorphism at depth

A record of laterally adjacent environments that migrated through time

Till is poorly sorted, unstratified and angular with striated clasts; outwash is sorted, stratified and rounded

Till is well sorted, neatly bedded and rounded by running meltwater; outwash is unsorted, unstratified and angular

They are completely identical in sorting, bedding and clast shape, having formed in the same way

Till is always much finer grained than outwash, which is invariably coarse and bouldery throughout

A warm interglacial stage with very little continental ice present

A cold glacial stage with large ice volume

No detectable change in the prevailing climate

A major explosive volcanic eruption episode