Life in the Universe (4th Edition)
4th Edition
ISBN: 9780134089089
Author: Jeffrey O. Bennett, Seth Shostak
Publisher: PEARSON
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Textbook Question
Chapter 4, Problem 33TYU
Radiometric dating now allows us to determine Earth’s age to an accuracy of about (a) a billion years; (b) 10 million years; (c) less than 20 years.
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Chapter 4 Solutions
Life in the Universe (4th Edition)
Ch. 4 - Briefly describe three aspects of geology that are...Ch. 4 - What do we mean by the geological record? Why is...Ch. 4 - Describe the three basic types of rock and the...Ch. 4 - How are sedimentary strata made, and how do they...Ch. 4 - Describe the technique of radiometric dating, and...Ch. 4 - How do fossils form? Do most living organisms...Ch. 4 - Summarize the geological time scale. What are...Ch. 4 - Prob. 8RQCh. 4 - Briefly describe how outgassing led to the origin...Ch. 4 - What was the heavy bombardment, and what effect...
Ch. 4 - Briefly describe Earths core-mantle-crust...Ch. 4 - Briefly describe the conveyorlike action of plate...Ch. 4 - Describe how plate tectonics shapes important...Ch. 4 - What evidence do we have for the operation of...Ch. 4 - What are the three requirements for a planetary...Ch. 4 - Briefly describe the mechanism by which the...Ch. 4 - What has happened to most of the carbon dioxide...Ch. 4 - What are ice ages, and what may cause them? What...Ch. 4 - Briefly summarize the key ways in which geology is...Ch. 4 - How do we think the Moon formed, and what evidence...Ch. 4 - We can expect that if there are paleontologists a...Ch. 4 - Nearly all the rocks I found in the lava fields of...Ch. 4 - Prob. 23TYUCh. 4 - Although Earth contains its densest material in...Ch. 4 - If you had a time machine that dropped you off on...Ch. 4 - If there were no plate tectonics on Earth, our...Ch. 4 - Without the greenhouse effect, there probably...Ch. 4 - If nitrogen were a greenhouse gas, our planet...Ch. 4 - We can learn a lot about Earths early history by...Ch. 4 - Prob. 30TYUCh. 4 - A rocks type (igneous, metamorphic, or...Ch. 4 - To learn a rocks age, we must (a) determine its...Ch. 4 - Radiometric dating now allows us to determine...Ch. 4 - Earths oceans formed (a) during the late stages of...Ch. 4 - We learn about the heavy bombardment by studying...Ch. 4 - Earth has retained a lot of internal heat...Ch. 4 - Plate tectonics is best described as a process...Ch. 4 - Earth has far less atmospheric carbon dioxide than...Ch. 4 - If Earth had more greenhouse gases in its...Ch. 4 - Snowball Earth refers to (a) one of a series of...Ch. 4 - The Age of Earth. Some people still question...Ch. 4 - Dating Planetary Surfaces. We have discussed two...Ch. 4 - Earth Without Differentiation. Suppose Earth had...Ch. 4 - Earth Without Plate Tectonics. Suppose plate...Ch. 4 - Feedback Processes in the Atmosphere. As the Sun...Ch. 4 - Geological Time. Geological time scales are often...Ch. 4 - Dating Lunar Rocks. You are analyzing Moon rocks...Ch. 4 - Carbon-14 Dating. The half-life of carbon-14 is...Ch. 4 - Martian Meteorite. Some unusual meteorites thought...Ch. 4 - Internal vs. External Heating. In daylight, Earths...Ch. 4 - Plate Tectonics. Typical motions of one plate...Ch. 4 - More Plate Tectonics. Consider a seafloor...Ch. 4 - Plate Tectonics and Us. Based on what you learned...
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- If you represent Earths history by a line that is 1 m long, how long a segment would represent the 400 million years since life first moved onto the land? How long a segment would represent the 4-millionyear history of humanoid life?arrow_forwardWhy is there so little evidence of Earth’s earliest history and therefore the period when life first began on our planet?arrow_forwardThe majority of the research shows that tectonic plates move at the average rate of between approximately 0.60 cm/yr to 10 cm/yr. (a) What distance does it move in 1 s at this speed range? (b) What is its speed in kilometers per million years?arrow_forward
- Given that the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years. Consider a sample of fossilized wood that when alive, would have contained 24 gm of carbon-14. It now contains 1.5 gm of carbon-14. How old is the sample?arrow_forwardThe half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years. Suppose a fossil is found with 30 percent as much of its carbon -14 as compared to a living sample. How old is the fossil?arrow_forwardThe radioactive element carbon-14 had a half-life of 5750 years. A scientist determined that the bones from a mastodon had lost 59.6% of their carbon-14. How old were the bones at the time they were discovered? The bones were about _ years old ? (Round to the nearest internet as needed )arrow_forward
- Radioactive isotopes can be used to find the age of rocks, fossils, or other artifacts. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. Suppose a sample of charcoal from a primitive fire pit contains one eighth of its original amount of carbon-14. How old is the sample? (Give your answer in units of years)arrow_forwardXavier is at NASA analyzing Moon rocks. In one of the rocks from the lunar Maria, he discovered 80% of the original uranium-238 remains, while remaining amount of uranium-238 had decayed into lead. The half life of uranium-238 is 4.5 x 109 years. Assume the only decay product is lead. How old is the lunar Maria rock in billions of years (109 years) ?arrow_forwardConsider Figure 25-8. What is the ratio of the length of time since the origin of fish to the time since the origin of mammals? What does this value indicate?arrow_forward
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