Paleontology Flashcards
The best difinition of a fossil is:
remains or traces of life in the past.
Paleontology is the study of which of the following?
a. Ancient life through fossil remains
b. dinosaurs
c. cultures of the past
d. none is correct
Ancient life through fossil remains.
Around 250 million years ago, what did Arizona look like?
a. Shallow seas covered this area.
b. Grassland
c. Desert
d. Woodland
Shallow seas covered this area.
During this time period, what was preserved in the hardened mud of the limestone rock?
a. Dinosaur bones
b. Fossil shells
c. Packrat middens
d. Dinosaur footprints
Fossil shells
Based on evidence from packrat middens, when did the current vegetation of the Sonoran Desert re-assemble after the last ice age?
a. 12,00 years ago
b. 4-5,000 years ago
c. 1,000 years ago
d. none are correct
4-5,000 years ago
The Sonorasaurus discovery was made in 1994 in a southern Arizona canyon by:
a. a paleotology professor from the University of Arizona
b. Richard Thompson, a University of Arizona student
c. ASDM staff
d. a local hiking club
Richard Thompson
Fossils are very common and are easily preserved.
True or False
False
Casts of fossils can be excavated on the ASDM grounds at the Ancient Arizona Exhibit.
True of False
True
Extinction rates today are similar to or greater than mass extinctions rates at the end of the Cretaceous.
True or False
True
Shasta ground sloths have been extinct for around 10,000 years.
True or False
True
Sonorasaurus is a long-necked dinosaur (s___________) about 40 feet long (about half the size of a braciosaurus).
sauropod
Sonorasaurus lived about how many years ago?
a. 25 million
b. 100 million
c. 500 million
d. 1 billion
100 million
For most of Earth’s history, we would not have recognizd it as our home planet. Which of these are true?
For most of Earth’s history, there were no multicelular organisms.
For half of Earth’s history there was little to no free oxygen in the atmosphere.
If all the Earth’s history was condensed into one hour, humans would appear in the last second.
The very early earth was inhospitable to life as we know it.
All are true.
The Sonorasaurus discovery was important because (choose all that are true):
__ It was a new species of dinosaur
__ It was the largest dinosaur found in Arizona
__ It was the first dinosaur found in Arizona
__ It was from a period where other sauropods are missing from this region.
X – It was a new species of dinosaur
__ It was the largest dinosaur found in Arizona
__ It was the first dinosaur found in Arizona
X – It was from a period where other sauropods are missing from this region.
The Sonorasaurus dig recovered only ___% of the skeleton, at least partly because the very hard rock layer containing the dinosaur was oriented vertically, below the surface.
30%
