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history of life Flashcards

1
Q

What is the age of the Earth?

A

4.5 billion years

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2
Q

Modern humans first appeared how many years ago?

A

100-
150 thousand years ago.

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3
Q

Are pieces of evidence of organisms that lived in the past. They can
be actual remains like bones, teeth, shells, leaves, seeds, spores, or traces of past activities such as animal burrows, nests, and dinosaur footprints, or even the ripples created on a prehistoric shore.

A

Fossils

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4
Q

Types of Fossils

A
  • Preserved/Original Remains
  • Trace Fossils
  • Cast Fossils
  • Mold Fossils
  • Petrified Fossils
  • Carbon Film
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5
Q

Impression made in a substance = negative image of an organism

A

Mold fossils

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6
Q

Organic material is converted into stone

A

Petrified Fossils

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7
Q

Preserved wooly

A

Preserved/Original Remains

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8
Q

When a mold is filled in

A

Casts Fossils

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9
Q

Carbon impression in sedimentary rocks

A

Carbon film

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10
Q

Record the movement and behaviors of the organism

A

Trace / Ichnofossils

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11
Q

The Six Ways of Fossilization

A
  • Unaltered preservation
  • Permineralization/Petrification
  • Replacement
  • Carbonization or Coalification
  • Recrystallization
  • Authigenic preservation
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12
Q

Small organism or part trapped in amber, hardened plant sap

A

Unaltered preservatio

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13
Q

The organic contents of bone and wood are replaced with silica, calcite or pyrite, forming a rock-like fossil

A

Permineralization/Petrification

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14
Q

hard parts are dissolved and replaced by other minerals, like calcite, silica, pyrite, or iron

A

Replacement

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15
Q

The other elements are removed and only the carbon remained

A

Carbonization or Coalification

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16
Q

hard parts are converted to more stable minerals or small crystal turn into larger crystals

A

Recrystallization

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17
Q

Molds and casts are formed after most of the organism have been destroyed or dissolved

A

Authigenic preservation

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18
Q

Can help a scientist establish its position in the geologic time scale and find its relationship with the other fossils.

A

Dating the Fossils

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19
Q

2 types of fossil dating

A
  • Relative
  • Absolute
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20
Q

Does not tell the exact age: only compare fossils as older or younger, depending on their position in the rock layer.

A

Relative Dating

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21
Q

When sedimentary rock layers are deposited, younger layers are on top of older deposits

A

Law of Superposition

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22
Q

Sedimentary rock layers are deposited horizontally. If they are tilted, folded, or broken, it happened later

A

Law of Original Horizontality

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23
Q

If an igneous intrusions or a fault cuts through existing rocks, the intrusion/ fault is YOUNGER than the rock it cuts through

A

Law of Cross-Cutting Relationships

24
Q

Determines the actual age of the fossil and uses radioactive isotopes like carbon-14 and potassium-40

A

Absolute Dating

25
the largest division of the geologic time scale; spans hundreds to thousands of millions of years ago (mya)
Eon
26
division in an Era that spans time periods of tens to hundreds of millions of years
Era
27
division of geologic history that spans no more than one hundred million years
Period
28
the smallest division of the geologic time scale characterized by distinct organisms
Epoch
29
- 4.5 billion years - About 88% of the Earth’s history
Precambrian
30
Earth coalesced from a cloud of dust into a planet
Hadean
31
life first appeared on Earth.
Archean
32
Cyanobacteria existed (w/o oxygen) and oxygenated the Earth
Proterozoic
33
6 periods in paleozoic
Cambrian Explosion Ordovician Period Silurian Period Devonian Period Carboniferous Period Permian Period
34
Hard external skeletons protected trilobites, clams, snails, and sea urchins from predators.
Cambrian Explosion
35
Plants colonized the land for the first time.
Ordovician Period
36
This was the “Golden Age” of cephalopods and brachiopods (a clam-like shellfish).
Silurian Period
37
are long-lived relics of the ancient family of naked-seed plants, so are conifers.
Ginkgos
38
the naked-seed plants - developed. Gymnosperms like Glossopteris developed.
Devonian Period
39
- Pangaea is formed - Temperature were extreme, and the climates was dry - Plants and animals evolved adaptations to dryness such as waxy leaves or leathery skin - Ended with mass extinction
Permian Period
40
Middle life, Age of Reptiles, Era of Dinosaurs
Mesozoic Era
41
Pangaea broke into two new continents Laurasia and Gondwanaland
Triassic Period
42
- Golden Age for Dinosaurs - Earliest birds evolved from reptiles - Intense volcanic activity
Jurassic Period
43
Many species and genera, including the dinosaurs, died out at end of Cretaceous
Cretaceous Period
44
“Age of Mammals”
Cenozoic Era
45
Reasons for mass extinction
1. Extreme volcanism producing enough Co2 to cause global warming 2. Ocean acidification Eruptions added 3. Phosphorous – stimulated bacterial growth (bacteria uses oxygen, Oxygen levels drop
46
fallout from a huge cloud of debris that billowed into the atmosphere when an asteroid collided with Earth
Iridium
47
How did the first living cells appear?
1. The abiotic (nonliving) synthesis of small organic molecules, such as amino acids and nitrogenous bases 2. The joining of these small molecules into macromolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids 3. The packaging of these molecules intro protocells, droplets with membranes that maintained an internal chemistry different from that of their surroundings 4. The origin of self-replicating molecules that eventually made inheritance possible
48
Who proposed that Earth’s early atmosphere was a reducing (electron-adding) environment, in which organic compounds could have formed from simpler molecules.
Alexander Oparin & John Burdon Sanderson Haldane [1920s]
49
Tested the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis
Stanley Miller
50
areas on the seafloor where heated water and minerals gush from Earth’s interior into the ocean.
Hydrothermal vents:
51
refers to a compartment where replication of the primitive genetic material took place and where primitive catalysts gave rise to products that accumulated locally for the benefit of the replicating cellular entity.
Protocell
52
They are layered rocks that were formed from certain activities of certain prokaryotes.
Stromatolites
53
A soft mineral clay produced by the weathering of volcanic ash greatly increases the rate of vesicle self-assembly
MONTMORILLONITE
54
Protocells could undergo
Natural Selection
55
were the main photosynthetic organism for a billion of years
Cyanobacteria
56
The oldest known fossils
Cyanobacteria - 3.8 billion yrs old

BIO (5 decks)

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