Madeline Maxwell- GEO 101 exam III
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What is isostasy?
The balance between Earth's crust and the mantle beneath it.
What happens when weight is added to Earth's crust?
The crust sinks or subsides.
What happens when weight is removed from Earth's crust?
The crust rises through isostatic rebound.
How are mountains related to isostasy?
Mountains have thick crust that extends deeper into the mantle.
What is a sedimentary basin?
A low area where sediments collect and build up over time.
What is the Black Warrior Basin known for?
Its sedimentary rock layers and coal deposits in Alabama.
When did the Appalachian Mountains begin forming?
During the Paleozoic Era.
When were the Appalachian Mountains at their greatest height?
During the Late Paleozoic Era.
What major collision helped form the Appalachian Mountains?
Africa collided with North America as Pangaea formed.
What type of plate boundary commonly creates mountain ranges?
Convergent plate boundaries.
What is the Appalachian Plateau?
A region of elevated, relatively flat land within the Appalachian Mountains.
What is the Valley and Ridge province known for?
Its folded and faulted layers of rock.
What is deformation?
A change in the shape, size, or position of rock.
What is stress?
Force applied to an area of rock.
What is strain?
The change in shape or size of rock caused by stress.
What are the three main types of stress?
Compression, tension, and shear.
What is compression?
Stress that pushes rocks together.
What is tension?
Stress that pulls rocks apart.
What is shear stress?
Stress that causes rocks to slide past one another.
What is a joint?
A fracture in rock with little or no movement.
What is a fault?
A fracture in Earth's crust where movement has occurred.
What is a fold?
A bend in layers of rock caused by stress.
What type of stress creates normal faults?
Tension.
What type of stress creates reverse faults?
Compression.
What type of stress creates strike-slip faults?
Shear.
What happens during a normal fault?
The hanging wall moves downward relative to the footwall.
What happens during a reverse fault?
The hanging wall moves upward relative to the footwall.
What is a thrust fault?
A low-angle reverse fault caused by compression.
What is an orogeny?
A mountain-building event or process.
What causes most major mountain-building events?
Tectonic plate movement and collisions.
How did the Himalayas form?
The Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate.
When did the Himalayas begin forming?
During the Cenozoic Era.
Are the Himalayas still growing?
Yes, because the Indian and Eurasian plates are still colliding.
What is Pangaea?
An ancient supercontinent that contained nearly all of Earth's landmasses.
What caused Pangaea to form?
The collision of several continental plates.
What type of plate boundary forms the Himalayas?
A convergent continental-continental boundary.
What is paleoclimate?
The study of Earth's climate in the past.
What is an Ice Age?
A long period when Earth's temperatures are cooler and ice sheets expand.
What was Snowball Earth?
A period when much of Earth's surface may have been covered in ice.
What is a mass extinction?
A relatively short period when a large percentage of Earth's species disappear.
How old is Earth?
Approximately 4.6 billion years old.
What are the four major divisions of geologic time?
Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic.
Which era came before the Paleozoic?
The Precambrian.
Which era came after the Paleozoic?
The Mesozoic.
Which era are we currently living in?
The Cenozoic.
What were conditions like on early Earth?
Earth was extremely hot and had a very different atmosphere.
What gas was common in Earth's early atmosphere according to the lecture?
Carbon dioxide.
What is the most abundant gas in today's atmosphere?
Nitrogen.
What percentage of today's atmosphere is nitrogen?
Approximately 78%.
What percentage of today's atmosphere is oxygen?
Approximately 21%.
Did Earth's atmosphere always contain large amounts of oxygen?
No, oxygen levels increased much later in Earth's history.
When did oxygen begin accumulating significantly in Earth's atmosphere?
Around 2.4 billion years ago during the Great Oxidation Event.
What evidence shows that early animals existed during the Precambrian?
Fossils found in Precambrian rocks.
What is DNA?
The molecule that carries genetic information in living organisms.
Do animals have DNA?
Yes, all animals have DNA.
Approximately when did the human and chimpanzee evolutionary lineages split?
Around 5-7 million years ago.
What was Australopithecus?
An early human relative that walked upright.
What does bipedal mean?
Walking on two legs.
Approximately when did early stone tools appear?
Around 2.5 million years ago.
What is Homo?
The genus that includes modern humans and several extinct human relatives.
What were hand axes used for?
Cutting, scraping, and processing materials.
What evidence shows early humans developed culture?
Cave paintings, tools, and elaborate burials.
What can fossils tell us about human evolution?
How human ancestors changed physically and behaviorally over time.
When did the Appalachian Mountains reach their greatest height?
During the Late Paleozoic.
Which continent collided with North America during the formation of the Appalachian Mountains?
Africa.
What was the largest mass extinction in Earth's history?
The Permian-Triassic extinction.
When did the Permian-Triassic extinction occur?
About 252 million years ago.
Approximately what percentage of marine species disappeared during the Permian-Triassic extinction according to the lecture?
About 97%.
What was Basilosaurus?
An ancient whale that lived during the Cenozoic Era.
Were mosasaurs dinosaurs?
No, they were marine reptiles.
Did dinosaurs live in the oceans during the Mesozoic Era?
No, although marine reptiles lived in the oceans.
What were mosasaurs?
Large marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era.
What is the Mesozoic Era commonly called?
The Age of Reptiles.
What is the Cenozoic Era commonly called?
The Age of Mammals.
What does the word fossil mean?
Something that has been dug up.
What is paleontology?
The study of ancient life through fossils.
What is a fossil?
Preserved remains, impressions, or evidence of ancient organisms.
What is a body fossil?
The preserved remains of an organism's actual body or body parts.
What are examples of body fossils?
Bones, teeth, shells, and feathers.
What is a trace fossil?
Evidence of an organism's activity or behavior.
What are examples of trace fossils?
Footprints, burrows, nests, and fossilized feces.
What is a coprolite?
Fossilized animal feces.
Are dinosaur footprints body fossils or trace fossils?
Trace fossils.
Are dinosaur nests body fossils or trace fossils?
Trace fossils.
What can fossils tell scientists?
Information about ancient organisms, evolution, environments, and climate.
When was Darwin's On the Origin of Species first published?
1859.
What is Darwin's Descent of Man about?
Human evolution and the idea that humans share common ancestry with other animals.
What is evolution?
Change in inherited characteristics of populations over generations.
What is natural selection?
The process where organisms with helpful inherited traits are more likely to survive and reproduce.
Who developed the theory of natural selection?
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed the idea.
What did Darwin not understand about inheritance?
Genetics and how traits are passed from parents to offspring.
What book did Darwin publish in 1859?
On the Origin of Species.
What is adaptation?
An inherited trait that helps an organism survive or reproduce in its environment.
What is microevolution?
Small evolutionary changes within a population.
What is macroevolution?
Large-scale evolutionary patterns, including the formation of new species.
Do individual organisms evolve?
No, populations evolve over generations.
Is natural selection the only mechanism of evolution?
No. Mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift also contribute to evolution.
What is common ancestry?
The idea that different species descended from shared ancestors.
What is gradualism?
The idea that evolution occurs through small changes over long periods of time.
What is Evo-Devo?
Evolutionary developmental biology, which studies how changes in development affect evolution.