Age of Dinosaurs Final Exam

which organisms went extinct in the K/Pg extinction (4)

plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ammonites, rudists

iridium (what, how, why)

o   What: Platinum group element that is rare on Earth’s crust, but abundant in asteroids

o   How: asteroid hitting earth or volcano from earth’s mantle fine particles traveled globally

o   Why: mainly found in extraterrestrial things (spread globally indicating large impact)

spherules (what, how, why)

o   What: tiny glassy spheres

o   how: vaporized rock

o   why: rock got hot enough that it vaporized (close to and far from impact)

tektites (what, how, why)

o   what: drops of cooled rock

o   how: rock hot enough it became liquid

o   why: earth got hot enough that it vaporized rock (close to impact)

shocked quartz (what, how, why)

o   what: internally fractured quartz grains

o   how: due to impact force

o   why: require a huge amount of pressure to fracture quartz (more than anything on the earth can produce) (near impact)

Nickel-rich spinels (what, how, why)

o   What: formed mineral

o   How: through oxidation of asteroid passing through atmosphere

o   Why: showed evidence that an asteroid passed through earth’s atmosphere (close to and far from impact)

environmental affects of the bolide impact

o   4km high tsunamis

o   Wildfires

o   Giant dust cloud

o   Acid rain

phylogenetic tree

ornithopods (name, when, where, pedal, diet, trace fossils)

• Name: bird feet

• Stratigraphic range: mid jurassic to end cretaceous

• Geographic range: all seven continents

• Pedal: obligate to facultatively biped

• Diet: herbivorous

• Trace fossils: mummies, eggs, hatchlings, trackways, sclerotic rings, stapes and hyoid bones

ornithopod (adaptations for herbivory, functions of crests and how to test)

• Adaptations for herbivory: 

  • Slender jaws with small teeth in a single row, cut vegetation but not grind

  • Cheek teeth become larger with thicker enamel for increased strength

  • Edges of teeth have denticles for cutting

  • Two staggered tooth rows, positioned one atop the other

  • Complex tooth battery, teeth enameled on one side 

  • Pleurokinetic skull, upper jaws hinged against skull, swung outward

  • Beak wider with horny covering

• Functions of ornithopod crests: 

  • Communication

    • Understand how air moves through the crests using CAT scanning

  • Olfaction

    • Look at how air moves through the crests and how it’s connected with the nares using CAT scanning

  • intraspecific combat

    • Look at damage on crests and what force they could withstand

  • ritualized display

    • Look at crests in males vs. females

  • Courtship

  • social ranking

    • Looking at ratios of sexually dimorphic and juveniles vs. adults and morphology (sizes and shapes of crests)

bone bed environemtns

lacustrine, watering hole accumulations, crevasse splay, and debris flow

lacustrine bonebed

• Many fully articulated bones (in original position)

• No bone weathering

• Low bone density

• No bone sorting

• No bone breakage

• No bone orientation

• Aquatics, invertebrates, fish fossils

• Mudstone, laminations

watering hole accumulations bonebed

• No articulated bones

• Extreme bone weathering

• Medium bone density

• No bone sorting

• Extreme bone breakage

• No bone orientation

• Aquatic, invertebrates, fish fossils

• Silt to sandstone, bioturbated

crevasse splay bonebed

• Few articulate bones

• Rare bone weathering

• High bone density

• Often bone sorting

• Little bone breakage

• Strong bone orientation

• Varied fossils

• Graded deposits (multiple repeated layers), turbulent flow, sandy

debris flow bonebed

• Few articulated bone

• Some bone weathering

• High bone density

• Often bone sorting

• Substantial bone breakage

• Strong bone orientation

• Varied fossils

• One massive graded deposit, poor sorted

bone density sorting

• Lacustrine: low

• Watering hole: medium

• Crevasse splay: often

• Debris flow: often

bone breakage

• Lacustrine: none

• Watering hole: extreme

• Crevasse splay: little

• Debris flow: substantial

Orientation help to differentiate between environments:

• Lacustrine: none

• Watering hole: none

• Crevasse splay: strong

• Debris flow: strong

Explain why sun river bone bed is either a crevasse splay or debris flow:

The sun river bone bed is a debris flow because it has substantial bone breakage at 28% and is one massive graded deposit that is poorly sorted. Whereas crevasse splays are layered deposits with little bone breakage.

sauropods (name, when, where, pedal, diet, trace fossils) NOVELTIES

• Name: lizard footed

• Stratigraphic range: middle triassic to late cretacous

• Geographic range: all continents

• Pedal: bi or quadrupeds

• Diet: herbivores

• Trace fossils:

  • Trackways

  • Gastroliths and teeth

  • Eggs and nests

• Evolutionary novelties:

  • Head very small relative to body

  • Spatulate teeth

  • Short feet

sauropods (longer neck, history of name, newspaper)

• How do sauropods have a longer neck?

  • Length of vertebrae

  • Number of vertebrae

  • Distribution of vertebrae

  • Added cavities and struts to decrease weight

• History of genus name brontosaurus:

  • Marsh named sacral material as apatosaurus in 1877 Marsh named another sacrum as brontosaurus in 1879

  • Decided they were the same genera

  • 2015: Tschopp resurrected brontosaurus genus

• Why was it switched to apatosaurus?

  • Marsh thought the sacral material were from the same genus

• Why was it switched back?

  • Tschopp found that brontosaurus is a separate genus from apatosaurus

• How do scientific journalists capture readers’ interest?

  • Use phrases like “makes a comeback” or “no longer extinct” to try to show that something noteworthy has occurred.

• To what extent did newspaper articles accurately explain the science?

  • Some articles were better than others. As for saying brontosaurus is “no longer extinct,” that is not scientifically accurate. However, most of the article did a decent job with explaining the scientific aspect.

Tschopp’s study

• Main research goal of the study

  • Reorganize the diplodichidae clade

• 3 results Tschopp got:

  • The resuscitation of brontosaurus as a distinct genus from apatosauurs

  • Discovery of an additional genus within diplodicidae named galeamopus

  • Origin of the clade lies in europe

• How they did their work:

  • Looked at skeletons for unique features that they could divide the phylogenetic tree

  • Specimen-based approach: randomly assigned each specimen a number and looked at them all without previous notions of what genera they were labeled as

theropods (name, when, where, pedal, diet, trace fossils)

• Name: beast-footed

• Stratigraphic range: late triassic to cretaceous

• Geographic range: every continent

• Pedal: obligate bipedal

• Diet: carnivores (everything)

• Trace fossils: 

  • Trackways

  • Bonebeds

  • Gastroliths

  • Coprolites

  • Eggs and nests

theropods (predation, disease/pathology, sexual dimorphism)

• Predation strategies:

  • Land shark:

    • slice and run

    • raptors

  • Large cats: 

    • wrestle and grapple with prey

    • Clamp jaws around neck to suffocate prey

    • t-rex

• Disease and pathology:

  • Bone fractures

  • Broken teeth (common with carnivores)

  • Bone infections

  • Metastatic cancer

  • Gout

  • Trichomonas parasitism

• Sexual dimorphism:

  • Slight size differences

  • Prominent cranial processes

what is a modern bird?

• Teeth absent

• Fused hand and ankle

• No bony tail

• Fusion of pectoral, pelvic, and skull bones

• Well developed keel

• Feathers

• Pneumatic bones

• furcula

which theropods are most closely related to birds?`

• Domaeosaurus (velociraptor and deinonychus)

• Unfused digits

• Non-pneumatic bones

• Long bony tail

• gastralia

archaeopteryx (when, where, important, traits)

• Upper jurassic

• Germany

• Transitional fossil with both dinosaur and avian traits showing that dinosaurs evolved into birds

• Dinosaur traits: teeth, bony tail, gastralia, unfused digits, non-pneumatic bones

• avian traits: furcula

feathers (functions, different forms)

• Functions:

  • Thermoregulation

  • Display

  • Sensory adaptation

• Different forms:

  • Filamentous feathers (hollow tube)

  • Downy feathers (unhooked, loosely-associated)

  • Contour feathers (hooked, symmetrical)

  • Flight feathers (hooked, asymmetrical)

evolution of flight (cursorial and arboreal hypothesis, WAIR)

• Arboreal: trees down (living in trees and began gliding down)

• Cursorial: ground up (adapted for running and taking leaps)

  • More likely because dinosaurs were land-dwellers.

• WAIR: Wing-Assisted Incline Running

  • Flapping to gain purchase on inclined slopes

  • Supports cursorial hypothesis because it shows how birds can move up surfaces using their wings and maybe began to fly

ethics

a set of principles of conduct in human society and how that conduct affects people’s relationship with one another

ethics in paleontology

• In paleontology: ethical problems increase with a decrease in the number of fossils and an increase in media attention

  • Fossils thought of as art and an economic commodity to be owned

sue case study (discovery, controversy, legal battle, ethical issues)

• Discovered by Sue Hendrickson in 1990 in south dakota

• Land owned by Williams

• Williams claimed he never sold it, Fossil confiscated by FBI

• Determined that Williams owned it

• Sold to field museum working with Disney and McDonald’s

• Ethical issues:

  • Should you be able to sell fossils?

  • Who does it actually belong to? The landowner, the government, scientists, the public?

  • The Cheyenne Sioux tribe that controlled the land/reservation it was found on received nothing

archaeoraptor case study (who, where, description, controversy, ethical issues)

• Bought by Stephen Czerkas from China

• Turned out to be a forgery with bones from a bunch dinosaurs

• Published in national geographic without peer review

• Ethical issues:

  • Faking science to be famous or known for something

  • Taking fossils from other countries without permission (from black market)

  • National geographic publishing without peer review

dino literature (the lost world plot and importance, children’s literature)

• Plot: dinosaurs still living on a high plateau in the Amazon. After escaping the amazon, they bring a pterodactyl to london which gets loose

• importance: 

• Children’s books:

  • All my friends are dead

  • Danny and the dinosaur

benjamin waterhouse hawkins

• Time period: 1807-1894

• Early examples of art:

Charles R. Knight

• Time period: 1874-1953

• Early examples of art: leaping laelaps

• importance: First showing of dinosaurs being agile indicating endothermy which wasn’t decided until 20 years later

Rudolph Zallinger

• Time period: 1919-1995

• Examples of art: murals

Relationship between dinosaur scientists and artists:

• Many artists collaborate with dinosaur scientists and museums now for accurate depictions

• Sometimes art can help dinosaur scientists realize things about dinos that they wouldn’t have previously considered (endothermy)

Gertie the dinosaur (time period, significance)

• Time period: 1914

• Significance: first animated dinosaur and first use of animation loops

the lost world movie (time period, significance)

• Time period: 1925

• Significance: first feature length dino movie and first dino running around in a city

king kong movie (time period, significance)

• Time period: 1933

• Significance: first brontosaurus in a swamp

jurassic park (time period, significance, cloning, inaccuracies, plot)

• Time period: 1993, 1997, 2001, 2015, 2018, 2022, 2025

• Significance: dinosaurs in movies evolved with research (posture and behavior of T-rex)

• Cloning:

  • Not scientifically accurate. DNA decays over time. The oldest DNA sample found was 2 million years old (not nearly far back enough for dinosaurs). Frogs are not similar to dinosaurs so would not be possible to splice their DNA together. Amber only keeps carbon copies, no liquid so no blood would have survived inside amber

• Inaccuracies:

  • Velociraptor way too big

  • Dilophosaurus did not have venom or a frill and was too small

  • T-rex’s vision is not based on movement (they have good eyesight)

• Plot and characters: 

  • Jurassic park was created after dinosaur clones were created. Hurricane hits and dinosaurs escape the park after an employee commits corporate espionage. Hammond brings in Allen Grant and Ellie Sattler (paleontologists) and Ian Malcolm who specializes in chaos math. Hammond’s grandkids are also there plus a lawyer.

which evidence for the bolide impact best informs us of the location of the impact

Tektites are better for pinpointing location of impact because they are deposited close to the impact. Larger, so probably easier to find than shocked quartz (which is also deposited close to the impact).