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I'll take one for the team and answer this question(again) You dont study for it, you learn by putting together your materials.(Binder, Guide, Etc.) If you dont do any work for it, you wont end up with a shiny peice of metal around your neck.

gneissisnice wrote:

Bassir wrote:I need to do this for States, and I was just assigned it today with about a mouth before the State competition...

How the pigeon do I study for this crap?

Would you please 1) read the numerous answers to that previously posted on this thread instead of skipping to the end and posting a question that has been answered a dozen times, and 2) Not call my favorite event crap?

the rules say their may be questions about radioactive dating/half lives and all that good stuff, my question is has anyone ever gotten any questions estimating the age of a fossil given the number of half lives its undergone? I would like to know because I am really trying to slim down my book as much as possible [had over 400 pages last year and could not find anything when I was at my State compaction and as result finished far away than my goal for the event]. This year I reduced it to the bare minimum and got it down to 40 pages. Now I am slowly adding more pages but have put a limit of 125 pages as the maximum.
Also besides tabbing pages does anyone else have any other system of organization to try [have done page numbers in the past but I add/change order of pages often]

packer-backer91 wrote:...had over 400 pages last year and could not find anything when I was at my State compaction and as result finished far away than my goal for the event]. This year I reduced it to the bare minimum and got it down to 40 pages. Now I am slowly adding more pages but have put a limit of 125 pages as the maximum.

Do you mean that you had 400 pages in your binder? That's... a lot. I don't know, but it doesn't seem like it's possible to get your hands on 400 pages of information. Unless you use very large font.

My only recommendation is that if you have a page for every taxon it might help to have them in the order that's on the list.

packer-backer91 wrote:the rules say their may be questions about radioactive dating/half lives and all that good stuff, my question is has anyone ever gotten any questions estimating the age of a fossil given the number of half lives its undergone? I would like to know because I am really trying to slim down my book as much as possible [had over 400 pages last year and could not find anything when I was at my State compaction and as result finished far away than my goal for the event]. This year I reduced it to the bare minimum and got it down to 40 pages. Now I am slowly adding more pages but have put a limit of 125 pages as the maximum.
Also besides tabbing pages does anyone else have any other system of organization to try [have done page numbers in the past but I add/change order of pages often]

At the last Invite I was at there was a question about calculating half lives. I'm pretty sure I got it wrong, too. Now we're doing the unit in math that talks about stuff like that and Carbon-14 dating. I already know how to do that, and have all the answers. When someone asked why we needed to know this in real-life, I said that it was important to date the ages of bones and organisms, and everyone laughed and called me a geek. But to answer your question, yes, I have seen that. For organization, I have large headings, try to go in order of the rules (like have fossil conditions first, because it's the first topic on the rule page), and spend a lot of time with my binder. I treat it like my best friend: know it inside and out.

the reason why it got up to around 400 was anytime I found new information I printed it out got put in book. Had all the information that was covered on my state test it was just way to hard to find the facts. The identification of fossils on the list made up only a very small part of my states test last year, there were just not enough time for me to answer all the questions at each station [had 23 stations].
This is also the reason why I want to get all the test that i can for this event. Each place I go the test content were very different. At my Regional almost all the test was the identification of fossils with some relative dating and half live problems worked into it. the 400 pages was to insure everything was covered in detail. I need more test to see how well my new binder will be in comparison to the one that i had from last year.

Hey guys this year i got a silver at regionals and my little 8 year old sister got bronze!!! it was so funny

Could anyone give me an example of a half life question?

Thanks.

Hey guys I'm a newbie at the Fossils realm. I took an invitational test and there were a few questions on major fossil fields (eg the Burgess Shale etc). Does anyone have a list of some important ones to study and know for the tests?

And while I'm at it, what is the most important thing to know beyond fossil identification?

Sorry if my questions seem a little stupid... I am more comfortable with things like Astronomy and Rocks and Minerals.

brenns10 wrote:Hey guys I'm a newbie at the Fossils realm. I took an invitational test and there were a few questions on major fossil fields (eg the Burgess Shale etc). Does anyone have a list of some important ones to study and know for the tests?

And while I'm at it, what is the most important thing to know beyond fossil identification?

Sorry if my questions seem a little stupid... I am more comfortable with things like Astronomy and Rocks and Minerals.

The Burgess Shale was really important because it had a lot of soft bodied organisms, preserved in what's called a laderstatten (I think, not sure of the name). That means that it was an area of very low oxygen that the dead organisms somehow ended up in, so they didnt decompose and they preserved very well. It is one of the most complete fossil records for the Cambrian Explosion, showing us dozens of new genuses (geni, whatever) that we would have never seen because of their soft bodies.

Other areas to know include the Green River formation (in Wyoming, very well preserved bony fish), that place in China with the feathered dinosaurs, the Edicarian fauna....that's all I know off the top of my head. I'm sure you'll find more if you search.

And besides ID, you're gonna need to be able to answer questions about an organism's diet, mode of life (was it stationary, did it swim, did it drift, etc), what time range was it found in, where was it found geographically, and some miscellaneous stuff, like the origin of its name, or an interesting feature. Basically put down any information you can, while keeping it all organized and succinct enough so you can understand it when you read it.

I hope that helped.

lllazar wrote:Could anyone give me an example of a half life question?

Thanks.

this came from a inv test from last year:


5F. Rank the following radioactive isotopes in order from LONGEST to SHORTEST half-life:

K-40, Ru-87, U-238, C-14

5G. Carbon-14 in a fossil is determined to have decayed 98% into Nitrogen-14. This sample has been decaying for more than ________ half-lives but fewer than _________ half-lives.

5H. If Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years, what is the age of the fossil in 5G? (Give a range).