Exam III

Question 1

What are spontaneous generation and panspermia?

Answer 1

spontaneous generation: belief that life spontaneously arose from rotting meat

panspermia: life seeded by chemical compounds or spores from meteorites

Question 2

What are the necessary traits, composition, conditions, and components for life?

Answer 2

traits: open systems, cell membranes, reproduce, complex dna info storers, changes and mutations
composition: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorous
conditions: deep ocean hydrothermal events
components: proteins, nucleic acids, organic phosphorous compounds, a container lol (#tupperwareformyskinsack)

Question 3

What did the Urey-Miller experiments reveal about the origin of life?

Answer 3

amino acids need UV radiation or lightning or charged surfaces to zap acids together into chains

Question 4

Why are hydrothermal vents thought to be where life began?

Answer 4

warm, deep, anaerobic (no oxygen)

Question 5

What is a prokaryote?

Answer 5

simple single that’s a proud asexual

Question 6

Why are earliest fossils (prokaryote fossils) rarely found?

Answer 6

soft bodied, microscopic

Question 7

What are stromatolites?

Answer 7

mat like colonies of photosynthetic cyanobacteria

Question 8

How do eukaryotes differ from prokaryotes?

Answer 8

eukaryotes are complex single cells that sexually reproduce, have organelles and variable evolution

Question 9

What were the Ediacarans?

Answer 9

large metazoan organisms (multicellular, eukaryotic) that came after snow ball earth (end of proterozoic eon), related to increase in oxygen and warm marine areas

similar to jellyfish, corals, and worms

Question 10

What is the importance of small shelly fauna?

Answer 10

the shells evolved to protect soft tissue, increasing probability of preservation

Question 11

Know the 5 steps to complex life.

Answer 11

1. prokaryotic bacteria
2. eukaryotic cells
3. multicellular soft bodied organisms
4. tiny, shelled organisms
5. large shelly animals

Question 12

When did the Paleozoic Era begin?

Answer 12

542 Ma

Question 13

What is the order of Paleozoic periods?

Answer 13

Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous (Miss, Penn), Permian

Question 14

What are cratonic sequences and how do they form?

Answer 14

definition: deposition sequences bounded by unconformities

how they form: transgressions and regressions of epicontinental seas

top: erosion
regressive sediments
maximum sea level
bottom: transgressive sediments

Question 15

What are epicontinental seas?

Answer 15

Shallow seas that flood broad, low-lying areas of continents

Question 16

Why are quartz sandstones important resources?

Answer 16

used to make glass

used for hydraulic fracturing by propping opening fractures

Question 17

What was the location and climate of Laurentia?

Answer 17

equatorial, tropical

Question 18

What is a clastic wedge and how does one form?

Answer 18

an expansive wedge shaped deposit of gravels, sands, and muds eroded and extending from the mountain front

form during orogeny bc of continental collision

Question 19

Know about the Cambrian Explosion represented by Burgess Shale. How were the fossils preserved?

Answer 19

as mostly soft parts

60,000 specimens collected

Question 20

What formed reefs in the early Paleozoic?

Answer 20

stromatolites and archaeocyathids “ancient cups”

Question 21

What are the other dominant organisms of the early Paleozoic?

Answer 21

trilobites: euryptids

brachiopods

graptolites: planktonic bois

Question 22

Why did so much salt accumulate in the Michigan Basin?

Answer 22

it was a hot shallow lagoon basin with a narrow neck restricting ocean flow

Question 23

Why do black shales form?

Answer 23

bc high organic content gets buried with low oxygen in warm, high water

Question 24

Why don’t black shales form in the ocean today?

Answer 24

the ocean today has mixing currents

Question 25

What resource is associated with black shales?

Answer 25

oil/natural gas

Question 26

How did reefs evolve in the middle paleozoic?

Answer 26

grew immensely in epicontinental seas honeycombs and sunbursts (tabulate and rugose), petroleum storer

Question 27

How are corals used to interpret Earth’s past?

Answer 27

paleo-equator locator

Question 28

What key invertebrates were common in mid-Paleozoic oceans?

Answer 28

blastoid and crinoids euryptids cephalopods

Question 29

What are some key differences between the 5 groups of fish?

Answer 29

ostracoderms: bony skinned, jawless ancanthodians: spiny fish with jaws and teeth placoderms: plate skinned fishes with jaws chrondrichthytes: sharkes with cartilage skeletons osteichthes: lobe finned or ray finned

Question 30

Bony fishes gave rise to what, which gave rise to what?

Answer 30

Bony fishes gave rise to lobe-finned fish, which gave rise to amphibians.

Question 31

What is a tetrapod?

Answer 31

4 legged vertebrates evolved from lobefin fish in late Devonian

Question 32

What is the fossil evidence of the first plants?

Answer 32

spores, Ordovician 450 Ma (plants probably derived from stonewarts pond weed)

Question 33

What is the advantage of seed-bearing plants vs. spore-bearing plants?

Answer 33

seeds survive harsher, drier conditions and can be dispersed further

Question 34

Which orogeny was responsible for the modern Appalachian Mts.? What caused it?

Answer 34

Alleghenian Orogeny, caused by collision of Gondwana and Laurentia

Question 35

What are cyclothems and what caused them?

Answer 35

cyclothems: cyclic repetition of marine and coal bearing, non marine strata shows advance/retreat of seas/glaciers

Question 36

How does coal form and why is it abundant?

Answer 36

1. plants buried 2. bacteria turned to muck (peat) 3. compressed by rock 4. carbon compressed abundant bc rising seas buried swamps

Question 37

What are the primary coal-forming periods?

Answer 37

Miss, Penn (latter)

Question 38

How did South Dakota’s Wind Cave form?

Answer 38

jointed Mississippian Pahasapa Limestone

Question 39

How does Pangea differ from Rodinia (compare them on a map)?

Answer 39

Pangea: larger, fewer continental shelves and epicontinental seas, south pole glaciation, mid latitude deserts, C SHAPED rodinia: idk clumpy

Question 40

What was the climate of Pangea like?

Answer 40

colder on south pole, hot dry in the middle

Question 41

Given an assemblage of fossils (including index fossils), what part of the Paleozoic are they from?

Answer 41

early: shells, anomalocaris (large shrimp pinching pitch), stromatolites middle: euryptids, cephalopods, blastoids, crinoids, tabulate and rugose, idk fish lol late: brachiopods, reptiles and amphibians and shit

Question 42

Amphibians evolved into reptiles: what trait allowed reptiles to conquer more environments on land compared to amphibians?

Answer 42

reptiles could reproduce without returning to water, amniote egg

Question 43

What is the difference between synapsid and therapsid reptiles?

Answer 43

synapsids: based on temporal openings in the skill, cold blooded therapsid: reptiles with mammalian traits, warm blooded and hair and stuff

Question 44

Plants: What types of plants made up coal-forming swamps?

Answer 44

lycopsid trees

Question 45

Why did insects get so large in the Pennsylvanian?

Answer 45

hella oxygen

Question 46

Which Paleozoic extinction event was the worst, and what caused it?

Answer 46

the late Permian one (Great Dying) caused by climate change related to formation of Pangea (frigid polar regions, no more shallow seas, Siberian Traps flood basalts)

Question 47

When did the Mesozoic begin and end? What is the order of Mesozoic periods?

Answer 47

251 Ma - 65 Ma Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous

Question 48

What is the result of Pangea breaking apart? What ocean forms as a result of the break up?

Answer 48

North America and Gondwana split (rifting and extension creates mountains and basins) North Atlantic ocean forms

Question 49

Gulf of Mexico evaporates forming salt. Why is this important for the oil industry?

Answer 49

salt domes form and trap oil

Question 50

How did orogenies change western North America?

Answer 50

caused compression and deformation (hella orogenies) accretion of exotic terrane

Question 51

Which orogeny led to the modern Rocky Mts.?

Answer 51

Laramide orogeny

Question 52

What is the evidence for the environments of the Mesozoic?

Answer 52

red rock country (triassic was hella dry) (morrison formation indicated movement into jurassic when things finally got wet again) western interior seaway for movement into cretaceous as everything started melting

Question 53

What is the Western Interior Seaway?

Answer 53

epicontinental sea that spanned gulf of mexico to the Arctic (100 m highter than today) jurassic-cretaceous

Question 54

Why was sea level so high in the mesozoic?

Answer 54

increased rate of seafloor spreading

Question 55

What rock types are associated with the seaway (South Dakota)

Answer 55

sandstone, black shale, carbonate limestone (including chalk!)

Question 56

What are coccoliths and what type of rock do they form?

Answer 56

microscopic plankton that form chalk

Question 57

What is the significance of the Deccan Traps?

Answer 57

greatest volume of continental basalt on earth (.5 million km3 of lava) #indiavsthehotspot

Question 58

What was Cretaceous climate like and why?

Answer 58

higher temps, no glaciers high sea floor spreading rates, low albedo, water expands at high temps