Chapter 1

Question 0

George’s Cuvier documented many extinctions and he was a catastrophist. What is catastrophism?

Answer 0

The hypothesis that today’s geological formations resulted from catastrophic events in the past

Question 1

Georges Cuvier is also known as?

Answer 1

pope of bones

Question 2

Charles Lyell was the foremost geologist of his day and he believed that the earth was a little over ___ MYO.

Answer 2

300

Question 3

What is uniformitarianism?

Answer 3

The assumption or “law” that processes identical to those of today are responsible for the past

Question 4

Diversity is the result of

Answer 4

Decent with modification

Question 5

What is homology?

Answer 5

A trait shared by two organisms as a result of inheritance from a common ancestor.

Question 6

What is Darwin’s 1st postulate?

Answer 6

There is variation among individuals

Question 7

What is Darwin’s 2nd postulate?

Answer 7

Some of the variations is heritable

Question 8

What is Darwin’s 3rd postulate

Answer 8

Individuals vary in their success at surviving or reproducing

Question 9

What is Darwin’s 4th postulate

Answer 9

Survival and/or reproduction is non-random

Question 10

What is Lamarck’s 1st postulate?

Answer 10

Use or disuse causes changes in organismal structure during its lifetime

Question 12

What’s Lamarck’s 2nd postulate

Answer 12

The structural changes that occur in an organisms lifetime are inherited by its offspring

Question 13

How did uniformitarians such as Hutton and Lyell estimate the age of the Earth to be 300 MYO?

Answer 13

They estimated ages of rock formations based on known rates of sedimentation, erosion, etc.

Question 14

Lord Kevin estimated that the age of the earth was ___ MYO by measuring the temperature of rocks and using the known rate of cooling

Answer 14

20

Question 15

How does radiometric dating work?

Answer 15

An unstable isotope of naturally occurring elements are used and these isotopes decay and change into different elements or different isotopes of the same element thereby allowing scientists to count the number of decay events resulting in the age of a rock sample.

Question 16

the unit of measure in radiometric dating is called?

Answer 16

half-life

Question 17

What are the 5 factors that need to be present if an organisms is to be fossilized?

Answer 17

1) die near water in a dry climate
2) have bones (or hard parts)
3) don’t get scavenged
4) get buried quickly
5) low-oxygen environment

Question 18

The oldest organisms to ever be fossilized is the _______. and how old was it?

Answer 18

Stromatolite (bacteria) ; 3.45 BYA

Question 19

How many billions of years ago did the transition from single cellular to multicellular occur?

Answer 19

2.1 BYO

Question 20

How old is the earth?

Answer 20

4.6 BYO

Question 21

What was the name of the diverse and unique animals that dominated the oceans from 575-535 MYA?

Answer 21

Ediacaran Fauna

Question 22

What is so special about the Burgess Shale?

Answer 22

It has housed the remains of over 65,000 specimens and 93 species.

Question 23

What was the cambrian explosion?

Answer 23

A period in which there was a rapid appearance of many large and complex lifeforms.