tracing phylogeny Flashcards
how do some fossils form?
form as sand, rock, silt us weathered and eroded from the land and carried by rivers to seas and swamps where the particles settle to the bottom
deposits pile up and compress the older sediments below into the rock - imprint fossil
what part of the organism gets preserved as a fossil?
the hard parts as the soft tissue decays
what sometimes happens with the tissue in fossils?
sometimes minerals seep into the tissues and replace its organic material as is done with petrified wood
what is another way fossils form besides imprinting?
by leaving an empty mold that becomes filled with mineral (other half=cast)
what do trace fossils leave behind?
trace fossils lie coprolites (fossilized dung) footprints or burrows that show the animal’s behavior
where can entire preserved organisms be found?
in amber - fossilized tree sap
frozen in ice
in acid bog where decomposition is slowed down
2 methods to date fossils
relative dating
absolute dating
what is relative dating?
dating relies on the position of fossils in strata
the deeper it is, the older
what does relative dating tell us?
the order in which groups of species existed but not the age of the fossil
what does absolute dating tell us?
does not tell us the absolute/errorless age but a close number
what is used for absolute dating?
aid of radiometric dating that relies on the fact that all fossils contained isotopes when they were alive and those isotopes decay at a fixed rate
half life of C 14? what does this mean?
5600 years
takes that long for 50% of the original sample to decay since isotopes are radioactive
what is C-14 used to date?
relatively young fossils
what isotope is used to date older rocks?
U-238
what can the geological time scale be divided into?
4 eras
many periods
many epoches
4 eras oldest to youngest
precambrian
paleozoic
mesozoic
cenozoic
what does the geological time scale correspond to?
is not divided arbitrarily, but corresponds to times of great change
are continents fixed in place?
no, they are drifting on plates above a hot mantle
what does the movement of plates lead to?
mountain buildings, volcanoes, and earthquakes
when was Pangea formed?
about 250 mya when plate movements brought the land masses on earth together into the supercontinent Pangea
what happened to the species on land when Pangea formed?
species that had evolved in solation were now together
shorelines reduced, causing a dry continental interior
mass extinction
when did the 6th mass extinction happen ? why?
today as a result of anthropogenic activities
what does the fossil record reveal?
an episodic history with long periods punctuated by a turnover in species composition
what does the episodes in fossil records include?
mass extinctions and adaptive/explosive reaction
what was an impressive adaptive radiatino?
Cambrian explosion between the Precambrian and Paleozoic eras