The Paleozoic Earth

Question 1

Names of the three principal eras of the Phanerozoic, their periods, and the age of the boundaries between them.

Question 2

What defines the base of the Phanerozoic?

Question 3

What proportion of Earth history does the Phanerozoic represent?

Question 4

What type of events are used to define the boundaries between the eras and periods of the Phanerozoic?

Question 5

What is the overall trend in the distribution of the continents through the Phanerozoic?

Question 6

How did sea level change during the Phanerozoic relative to present day sea level? Could you draw the relative sea level curve? During which periods was sea level highest and lowest?

Question 7

What is the relationship between sea level, transgressions and regressions, and unconformities?

Question 8

What is an epicontinental sea? Why might an epicontinental sea form and retreat? What does this have to do with transgression and regression?

Question 9

What are the general trends in the climate and sea level through the Paleozoic? What are the names of the major Palaeozoic continental masses and oceans and the approximate ages of their formation and amalgamation? Specifically, for each period of the Paleozoic what were the environmental conditions: ie where were the continents located (palaeogeography) and what was global temperature and sea level.

Question 10

What major change took place on the Earth at the beginning of the Paleozoic? What is the Cambrian explosion?

Question 11

Does the unconformity at the base of the Cambrian indicate a major marine transgression or regression?

Question 12

What led to a high concentration of metal ions in the oceans that were the source materials of biomineralization
in the Cambrian?

Question 13

What effect did the advent of mineralised hard parts have on the fossil record?

Question 14

What are the advantages of biomineralization?

Question 15

When did the Great Ordovician Biodiversification events (GOBE) occur?

Question 16

How did GOBE differ to the Cambrian explosion?

Question 17

What were the physical causes of the GOBE?

Question 18

What is thought to be the principal cause of the Late Ordovician mass extinction?

Question 19

What was the depositional setting of reefs in the Silurian? How did the distribution of reefs in the Silurian differ to the distribution of reefs today and why? How have the major reef forming organisms changed through time?

Question 20

When did the Calendonian Orogeny occur and why? What are the names of the continental masses and of the
ocean between them that was closed in the Calendonian orogeny? Make sure that you can locate the
Calendonian orogen.

Question 21

How did sea level fall through the Silurian-Devonian affect deposition on the land? What are red beds and what was there depositional setting?

Question 22

When is the oldest evidence for land plants? When did plants start evolving into something more than small, primitive forms? What age are the oldest forests? What impact did land vegetation have on the oxygen content of the atmosphere, the climate, and on rivers and animal life? If meandering rivers are seen Mars, does this mean vegetation also existed there at one time?

Question 23

When in the Devonian did one of the big-five mass extinction events occur and what were the physical causes?

Question 24

How did the climate at the poles and equator compare in the Carboniferous?

Question 25

When did the Gondwanan glaciations occur?

Question 26

What caused the cyclicity observed in Mid- to Late Carboniferous successions?

Question 27

What two economically important units were deposited at equatorial latitudes in the early and late Carboniferous respectively? What were their depositional settings?

Question 28

When did the supercontinent Pangaea form? What is the Variscan orogeny and when did it occur? What are the names of the two large continental masses and of the ocean between them that was closed in the Variscan orogeny?

Question 29

Locate the Variscan orogen, Panthalassic ocean, Paleo-Tethys ocean, Tethys Ocean,
Gondwana, Laurasia, Siberia and Cimmerian Terrane on a map of the world.

Question 30

What effect did the formation of Pangaea have on global sea level and climate in the Permian? How did the depositional setting change in the Permian from the Carboniferous at low to mid latitudes?

Question 31

What economically important group of minerals were deposited in the Zechstein Basin, and when were they
deposited? What is the main process by which these minerals form?