Chapter 7 Flashcards
Ichthyosaurus
fish lizard
What were some of Mary Anning’s discoveries?
She excavated a complete fossilized skeleton of an ichthyosaurus (fish lizard), Pterodactylus macronyx (flying creature), and a Plesiosaurus (fish creature)
Why were Annings discoveries and contributions not recognized as much as they should have been?
Because the Geological Society of London was closed to women
Extinct
terminated or vanished
Extant
still surviving
Deep Time
Scotsman James Hutton’s theory gave the history of Earth enough time—4.543 billion years—to encompass continental drift, the
evolution of species, and the fossilization process
Uniformitarianism
Charles Lyell’s theory claimed the
doctrine that Earth’s geologic formations are the work of slow geologic forces
Catastrophism
the belief that Earth’s formation was due to a set of relatively
quick biblical catastrophic events
Fossils
the mineralized copies of once-living organisms
Why was there such resistance to the idea that animals and people may have evolved over time?
To even consider that humans and animals might have evolved over time was practically an admission that the Christian God had made mistakes that needed correction in His creation of Earth and all living things. To think otherwise was considered heresy and was punishable by ex-communication from the Church—or even death. Instead, scientists were still trying to fit geologic evidence into Biblical chronology
Why is the study of fossils important in anthropology?
because these answers provide insights into human evolution
Eon
The largest subunit of geologic time
Era
An eon is further divided into eras
Period
eras are divided into periods
Epoch
periods are divided into epochs
Holocene
the current epoch
Anthropocene
This has led some scientists within the stratigraphic community to argue for a new epoch beginning around 1950 with the Nuclear Age called the Anthropocene. The major event that marks the boundary is the warming temperatures and mass extinction of nonhuman species caused by human activity
What are some arbitrary ways scientists might determine where one unit of time begins and another ends?
Events like
significant shifts in
climate or mass extinctions can be used to mark the end of one geologic time unit and the beginning of another
Summarize the current debate about the epoch we are currently in. Include human activity in your answer.
Some say it is simply a warm blip in a larger epoch that includes the Pleistocene and not a new epoch called the Holocene. Others say human-driven climate change is warming the world and changing environmental patterns faster than the natural cyclical processes, which means a new epoch from the industrial revolution called the Anthropocene should be formed.
Abraham Ortelius
Ortelius came up with the concept that one supercontinent called Pangea had existed much earlier in Earth’s history
Pangea
One supercontinent called Pangea existed much earlier in Earth’s history. Approximately 200 million years ago, Pangea started to slowly break apart, with the resulting pieces of land shifting and moving through the process of continental drift.
Continental Drift
Pangea started to slowly break apart, with the resulting pieces of land shifting and moving through the process of continental drift
Laurasia
one of the two supercontinents
Gondwanaland
one of the two supercontinents