Module 13 - History of Life

Question 1

What is the Theory of Biogenesis?

Answer 1

Only living organisms can produce other living organisms.

Question 2

What were the first cells?

Answer 2

Prokaryotes

Question 3

Endosymbiont Theory

Answer 3

The ancestors of eukaryotic cells lived in association with prokaryotic cells. Prokaryotes might’ve even lived inside eukaryotes and evolved into some of the organelles in eukaryotes now.

Question 4

What are the categories of fossils?

Answer 4

Trace fossil, molds, casts, replacement, petrified, permineralized, amber, original material.

Question 5

What is a fossil?

Answer 5

Any preserved evidence of an organism

Question 6

What is a paleontologist?

Answer 6

A scientist who studies fossil and attempts to read the record of life left in rocks, infer information about diet environment, and ancestry of an organism.

Question 7

What is relative dating?*

Answer 7

A method used to determine the age of rocks by comparing them with those in other layers.

Question 8

What is the law of superposition?

Answer 8

The younger layers of rock are on the top and the older layers will be lower down.

Question 9

What is radiometric dating? *

Answer 9

Using the decay of radioactive isotopes and their half-life to measure the age of a rock.

Question 10

What is the geological time scale?

Answer 10

A record of Earth’s history, spans more than 4 billion years.

Question 11

What are epochs? *

Answer 11

Several million years long, smallest units of time

Question 12

What are periods? *

Answer 12

Tens of millions of years long, consist of two or more epochs

Question 13

What is an era? *

Answer 13

Hundreds of millions of years, consist of two or more periods

Question 14

What is an eon? *

Answer 14

Longest unit of time in the geological time scale, billions of years, consist of two or more eras

Question 15

What are the four eras? *

Answer 15

Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic

Question 16

What is the K-T boundary?

Answer 16

A layer of material between the Cretaceous period and the Paleogene period that gives evidence for a meteorite impact that killed the dinosaurs.

Question 17

What are plate tectonics?

Answer 17

The movement of several large plates that make up the surface of the earth.

Question 18

What is spontaneous generation?

Answer 18

The idea that life arises from nonlife

Question 19

What is the Miller-Urey experiment? *

Answer 19

The experiment that showed simple organic molecules could be made from inorganic compounds. They simulated early Earth conditions with water and gases and electric discharges, which created amino acids.

Question 20

What is the Cambrian explosion?

Answer 20

Major animal groups diversified at the start of the Paleozoic era.