Final Exam Flashcards
When did Pangaea begin to break up?
Triassic.
What types of deposits are preserved along the East Coast of North America associated with the early stages of formation of the Atlantic Ocean?
Basalts in the form of the Pallisades Sill.
What two major orogenies occurred in the Triassic on the western margins of North and South America?
South America- Andes Orogeny
North America- Sonoma Orogeny
What type of ammonoid was dominant in the Triassic?
Ceratites.
What do we know about the feeding habits of Placodonts? How do we know this?
They had blunt tooth shell crushers and we know this becuase of Budodont teeth.
What are the two main groups of Dinosaurs? What is used to differentiate between the groups?
Bird hipped- Ornithischians
Lizard hipped- Sauriscians
What are the major Sloss sea level sequences and when did they occur?
Sauk: Late Precambrian- Early Ordovician
Tippecanoe: Early Ordovician- Early Devonian
Kaskaskia: Mid Devonian- Miss/Penn Boundary
Absaroka: Miss/Penn Boundary- Jurassic
Zuni: Jurassic- Early Tertiary
Tejas: Early Tertiary- Today
What evidence is there for aridity during the early Jurassic in North America?
Sand dunes and deserts that make up the Navajo Sandstone.
What is special about Archaeopteryx?
It is the missing link between reptiles and birds.
From which major group of Dinosaurs did Birds evolve?
Sauriscian.
What are gastroliths?
It’s a stone that’s swallowed by dinosaurs that grinds up whatever they ate.
When were Ichthyosaurs dominant?
Lower Mesozoic.
What type of animals built large reefs during the Cretaceous? (this animal normally doesn’t build reefs)
Rudists (a type of clam).
Know the styles and dates of the major orogenies that affected North America in the Phanerozoic.
Taconic- Ordovician- East Coast- Peripheral.
Acadian- Devonian- East Coast- Retroarc.
Alleghenian- Pennsylvanian- East Coast- Retroarc.
Antler- Devonian- West Coast- Peripheral.
Sonomian- Triassic- West Coast- Retroarc.
Nevadan- Jurassic- West Coast- Retroarc.
Subir- Jurassic- West Coast- Retroarc.
Laramide- Cretaceous- West Coast- Retroarc.
When did the largest turtles live? When did the largest flying animals ever live?
Largest turtles lived in the Mesozoic and the largest flying animals lived in the Mesozoic as well.
When did the major flowering plant (angiosperm) radiation take place?
Mesozoic (Cretaceous).
List at least four lines of evidence for a major collision of an extra terrestrial body with the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous.
- Impact Crater
- High concentration of Iridium
- Shocked quartz
- Nuclear winter
What element is found in great abundance at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary? How does this element support the theory of an extra terrestrial impact?
Iridium is found in abundance in extra terrestrial bodies and not on the earth. Iridium is found in high concentration in the sedimentary record during this time.
What major groups went extinct at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary?
Dinosaurs, marine and flying reptiles, Ammonites, and Rudists.
What evidence is there for a warm early Paleogene?
Abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios in planktonic and benthic organisms. Change in number of Stomata on leaves also helped prove this.
What happened at 36mya in the area that is now Chesapeake Bay? What evidence do we have for this?
An asteroid impact created the Chesapeake Bay. The impact crater it left behind and shocked quartz helped prove this.
What two major morphological trends do we see occurring over the evolutionary lineage of horses?
Originally horses had separated toes, but they morphed into a single hoof. They also grew in size starting at the size of a dog.
When did the largest sharks ever live?
Paleogene.
What evidence do we have for cooling at the end of the Eocene?
Ice began to reappear at the poles and the Antarctic Ice Sheet began to rapidly expand.
What types of animals replaced raptorial dinosaurs as one of the top land predators in the Paleogene?
Giant flightless birds.
When did the uplift of the Colorado Plateau occur? What type of tectonic activity was associated with this uplift?
Late Cenozoic. Normal block faulting caused the formation of basin and range provinces (ex: Death Valley).
What was the Great American Interchange?
When North and South America were connected, species interacted and often killed each other off. Most Marsupials in South America were wiped out.
What major factors lead to the build-up of glaciers in Antarctica?
Warm water was unable to reach Antarctica due to disruption of flow because of glaciation in Northern hemisphere.
What are the 6 lines of evidence for major glaciation at the end of the Neogene?
1) Erratic boulders
2) Depression of land surface
3) Till everywhere
4) Glacial striations
5) Lowering of sea levels
6) Migration of species
How does the modern day distribution of Gorillas in Africa support climate change during the late Neogene?
Gorillas migrated due to extreme weather (drying of habitable areas). Today they are found in the same areas they migrated to.
What are Prairie Potholes?
Depressions formed from buried blocks of ice.
What are the two hypotheses for the mega-faunal extinction during the Holocene?
Climate change and predation by humans.
Why do we think the extinction of the Pleistocene/Holocene megafauna was NOT a mass extinction?
Only 43% of mammals went extinct and it was over a long period of time.
