MEGA Science: Earth and Space

What is the order of planets in the solar system according to distance from the sun?

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

(My very educated mother just served us noodles)

What are the terrestrial planets?

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Mars

(My very educated mother)

What are the gas giants

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

(Just served us noodles)

What are the properties of terrestrial planets?

Centrla metallic core

Iron

Surrounding silicate mantle

Canyons

Craters

Mountains

Volcanoes

List the gas giant characteristics:

Composed of helium and/or hydrogen

Swirling gases above a solid core instead of hard surfaces

What is the largest planet in our solar system?

Jupiter

From smallest to largest, what is the order of the planets?

Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter

(My mom visits each night, and usually sneaks sweets)

What is the order of the geologic time scale periods from oldest to newest?

Archean

Proterozoic

Paleozoic

Mesozoic

Cenozoic

(All People Prefer More Coffee)

What periods are included in the Paleozoic era from oldest to newest?

Cambrian

Ordovician

Silurian

Devonian

Mississippian

Pennsylvanian

Permian

(Can Otters Silently Devour My Pizza Please?)

List the Mesozoic periods in order from oldest to newest:

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

(Tigers just can’t)

List the Cenozoic periods in order of oldest to newest:

Paleocene

Eocene

Oligocene

Miocene

Pliocene

Pleistocene

Holocene

(Playful Elephants Often Munch on Pineapples, Pizza, and Ham)

what happened during the precambrian era

• Formation of the Earth

• Development of the first single-celled organisms

• Emergence of photosynthesis

• Evolution of eukaryotic cells

• Appearance of multicellular organisms

What happened during the Cambrian period?

Most of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record

Cambrian animals developing strategies like hunting and burrowing

Red and green algae appeared

What happened during the ordovician era?

Marine invertebrates (gastropodes, trilobites, sponges, and corals) were abundant

First armor-plated vertebrate fish appeared

Begining of life on land

Many adaptations of plants, fungi, and animals allowed aquatic organisms to survive and reproduce on land

Late Ordovician: massive glaciers formed (shallow seas drained and sea levels dropped) causing mass extenctions that characterized the end of the Ordovician period

What happened during the Silurian age?

Slimate stabilized

Glaciers melted and sea levels rose

Algae, brachiopods, orinoids

Trilobites peaked

Appearance or coral reef, first freshwater and jeweled fish

Evidece of life on land including relatives of spiders and centipedes and earliest vascular plants

What happened during the Devonian period?

Early Devonian: terrestrial vegitation, bacterial and moss beds

Late Devonian:

• First true land plants

• First forests

• First appearance of sharks, bony fish, and coiled ammonites

• Oceans dominated by reef-builders

  • First land animals: amphibians, spiders, millipedes, and insects

What happened during the Mississippian period?

First seed ferns and winged insects

What happened during the Pennsylvanian period?

Coal swamps flourished with scale trees, seed ferns, and horsetails

first conifer appearance

Gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods, amphibians, and insects abundant

Scorpions and cockroaches abundant

First conifer trees, reptiles, spiders, and land snails appear

Trilobites rare

What happened during the Permian period?

Mass extinction of rugose corals, trilobites, fusulinids, and most Paleozoic plants and invertebrates

Diversity and abundance of reptiles

First mammal-like reptiles appear

Metamorphosis occurs in insects

First conifers appear

What happened during the Triassic period?

Extinction of tabulate corals and few marine invertebrates

New types of sponges appear

First turtles, lizards marine reptiles, and dinosaurs appear

Primitive mammals appear for the first time

What happened during the Jurassic period?

Giant dinosaurs and marine reptiles were dominant

First frogs, salamanders, and crocodiles appear

Flying reptiles, birds, and modern insects appear

What happened during the Cretaceous period?

Mass extinction of ammonites and belemnites

First angiosperms (flowering plants) and primates appear

Primitive mammals and birds increase

Climax of dinosaurs with flying reptiles, dinosaurs, marine reptiles, and toothed birds became extinct

What happened to the climate during the Paleogene and Neogene periods?

Tundra covered much of the north

Savannahs and deserts appear

Grasslands expand

What happened during the quarternary period?

Rise of human civilization

Many meteorite impacts

Four major glacial events: Ice Ages

Extinction of horses and camels in america

Appearance of human family giving rise to modern man

What period were the ice ages in?

Quarternary

What geological time period was the rise of human civilization?

Quaternary

When was the first mass extinction event?

The Ordovician event where more than 85% of all species on the planet were wiped out due to volcanic activity

When did the mass extinction event that wiped out marine species and bottom-dwelling invertebrates in tropical seas occur?

During the Late Devonian period

When did the “great die-out” occur?

At the end of the Permian period

Which event led to dinosaurs becoming the dominant land animals on Earth?

The Triassic-Jurassic extinction

When did the mass extinction that knocked out the dinosaurs happen?

During the end-Cretaceous extinction

What is the difference between weathering and erosion?

Weathering chemically breaks things down and erosion carries perticles away

What is the biosphere?

The parts of earth where life exists from the roots of trees to the depths of the oceans and the high mountaintops. The biosphere overlaps all other spheres since life exists on the ground, in the air, and in the water.

What is the hydrosphere

The Earth’s water including on the surface, in the ground, and in the air

What is the geosphere?

All solid portions of the earth including the oceanic crust and all other layers of the Earth’s interior

What is the atmosphere?

The layer of gas and suspended solids extending from the Earth’s surface

What are the four layers of the atmosphere from closest to furthest from Earth?

Troposphere

Stratosphere

Mesosphere

Thermosphere

Exosphere

Which part of the atmosphere do we live in?

Troposphere

Which layer of the atmosphere contains most of our weather

Troposphere

Which part of the atmosphere contains most of our weather

Troposphere

What is the temperature like in the troposphere?

The temperature gets colder as the distance above Earth increases

What is the boundary layer?

The lowest part of the troposphere where air motion is determined by properties of the Earth’s surface. Turbulence redistributes heat, moisture, pollutants, and other constituants of the atmosphere within the boundary layer

What is the tropopause?

The top of the troposphere

Which layer of the atmosphere contains much of the ozone in the atmosphere

Stratosphere

What is temperature like in the stratosphere?

Much warmer than the troposphere due to absorption of UV RADIATION

Where is the hole in the ozone layer?

Stratosphere

What is the rock cycle?

The processes through which igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock transform from one type to another

How are sedimentary rocks formed?

From pieces of other existing rock or organic material.

What are clastic sedimentary rocks?

Form from pieces of other rock (clasts)

What are organic sedimentary rocks?

Form from hard, biological materials like plants, shells, and bones that are compressed into rock

How are clastic and organic rocks formed?

Exposed rock is broken down into small fragments through weathering. Erosion moves these fragments and settles the sediment somewhere where it builds up and the lowest layers become compacted so tightly that they form solid rock. `

How are chemical sedimentary rocks formed?

Through chemical precipitation where a chemical compound forms when the solution it is dissolved in evaporates and leaves the compound behind.

What are some types of sedimentary rocks?

coal, limestone, sandstone, flint

What are metamorphic rocks?

Rocks that have been changed from their original form by immense heat or pressure. There are two classes: foliated and nonfoliated

What is a foliation?

Aligning of elongated minerals perpendicular to the direction of the pressure that is applied

What are igneous rocks?

Rocks formed when molten hot material cools and solidifies

What are intrusive (plutonic) igneous rocks

Rocks formed inside the Earth

What are extrusive (volcanic) igneous rocks?

Rocks formed outside of or on top of the Earth’s crust.

How are mountains formed?

1. The collision or overlapping of plates

2. The raising or tilting of a fault-block

3. Volcanos

How are canyons formed?

The movement of rivers and a combination of weathering and erosion

How are ocean trenches formed?

Subduction: Two or more tectonic plates collide and the older and denser plate is pushed beneath the liter plate deep into the mantle which causes the seafloor and outermost crust to bend and forma steep V-shaped depression.

What happened to the plants during the Paleogene and Neogene period?

Kelp proliferate supporting new sea life including otters, fish, and invertabrates

Grasses expand

Legumes spread

Extensive herbs develop

Deciduous trees begin overtaking evergreens

Modern marine plants of today appear

What happened to animals during the Paleogene and Neogene periods?

Primates evolve

Mastodon, mammoth, and camel common in America

Modern horses and elephants appear

Animals grow larger

Whales appear

Deciduous trees begin overtaking evergreens

First primates, hoofed animals, and early forms of modern mammals appear

Birds diversify and owls appear

Modern marine invertebrates of today appear