EAS 207

What is a rock?

Composites of minerals in a solid state

True or false, all sedimentary rock form strata (layers)

true

What are natural phenomena?

Phenomena that can be explained through natural causes

What are the two types of fossils?

Body fossils (parts of the body lol)

Trace fossils (tracks, their burrows)

What is diagenesis?

The physical and chemical processes that take place after deposition

What are the four features that connect humans and chordates in modern day?

- The presence of a notochord,

- dorsal hollow nerve cord,

- the pharyngeal slits, and the

- postanal tail.

What is the function of a dorsal hollow nerve cord?

Motor and sensory transmission

What is a species-habitable area?

It is when diversity is being crowded into a much smaller are (usually happens when shallow waters are flooded) which results in extinction.

What does glaciation do?

Its formation or melting leads to a long-term change in global temperature and sea level

Majority of the extinctions we see happened not because of asteroids but because of?

Sea level changes

Geology studies the ___, _____, and the ______

Original, classification, and composition

What are the 5 things that can be studied through geology

-Minerals, rocks, soils

-Surficial and deep processes (along with geologic time)

-Earth's evolution

-Patterns of organismal evolution

-Evolution of the solar system

True or false, a rock is only made up of one kind of mineral

False, they can be composed of one kind of mineral but more often than not, they are a combination of many minerals

What is the difference between relative time and absolute time?

-Relative time is related to order. For example, it is related to the division in the layers of sedimentary rocks, which can tell us what fossilized and came first before the other layers.

-Absolute time is when there are specific numbers derived from taking samples and such, usually found by using expensive material like spectrometers. They are a specific point in time that can be dated on a calendar or clock.

"I will meet you in 5 minutes"

Relative time: which is relative to the time it is now, or five minutes from now.

"I will meet you at 2"

it is absolute time and is not relative to current time, it is a set time on the clock or calendar

When we have a tiny sediment of crystal, what must it have in order for us to be able to date it using a spectrometer?

The right amount of preserved gas

What did Nico steno discover?

Nico steno was the first to realize that earth's crust contained a chronological history of geological events

What was the discovery of tongue stones?

-There were these triangle looking stones that people before 1666 thought to have fallen from the sky

-Nico steno was observing a living caught shark at the time and realized how similar the tongue stones and the shark teeth were, and there he had deduced that the tongue stones once came from living sharks. He was able to deduce that the origins of where the fossil was found is representative of the environment that the deceased sharks used to live in.

What is the law of superposition?

It states that any forming matter at the bottom always has a fluid layer sitting on top of it. After the bottom layer settles and solidifies, only then can the layer on top of it solidify as well and etc

What is the principle of original horizontality?

All sedimentary rock are deposited horizontally and can later deform which would allow us to infer if anything would have happened geologically to shift the orientation of the sediment.

What is the principle of lateral continuity?

All sediment is continuous and laterally deposited unless it is interrupted by some solid barrier. If there are any breaks to the continuity, we can infer what had happened geologically (like the erosion of rock due to a river///waterfall etc)

What is the principle of cross-cutting relationships?

Any feature that cuts through a stratum was younger than what was being cut through.

What are the two things that James Hutton proposed?

- Gradualism: you can affect long term changes through an accumulation of small short term changes over time

- Uniformitarianism: processes back then are the same as processes now

What did giovanni arduino propose?

Primary, secondary, and tertiary layers of rocks

Primary, secondary, and tertiary layers of rocks mean?

- Primary: the oldest, crystalline

- Secondary: hard and stratified

- Tertiary: loose, and youngest

What is meant by the term alluvium?

Loose dirt, clay

What were the two types of succession that made up the global time scale?

The geological succession and the fossil succession

What eon corresponds to 4.6 - 3.8 bya?

The hadean

What eon corresponds to 3.8-2.5 bya?

The archean

The oldest rock on the planet have been dated as far as?

4.6 billion years ago

Limestone rocks come from

carbonate

What are igneous rocks?

Crystallized minerals from magma

What is another name for granites?

SALIC

What is the difference between basaltic and granite?

Basaltic rocks are heavy in iron, granites are light and fluffy bc of the presence of silica

What percent of the earth's crust is made of basaltic rock

76%

What are metamorphic rocks?

They are rocks that are formed by igneous and sedimentary rocks

How are metamorphic rocks created?

Through high temperature and pressure, this doesnt mean that the rocks were melted prior to settling though.

Why dont they use sedimentary rocks for the top of kitchen islands? What do they use instead?

Sedimentary rock is too soft for kitchen islands, they use metamorphic rocks instead

Why are metamorphic rocks so bad for fossils?

Bc they are constantly getting heated and squashed compactly

What is stratigraphy?

The study of strata

What are plate tectonics?

The movement of crustal plates

The salt that we use for food, where does it come from?

Evaporite deposits

What are some organic sources of chemical rocks

Things like skeletons of animals, coral reefs

What are some inorganic sources of chemical rocks?

Precipitates of seawater

T/F: clastic sedimentary rocks don't weather easily

False, they do weather easily

What kinds of rocks are used for past records?

Sedimentary rocks

What is the difference between clastic and carbonate rock

Clastic rocks require the transfer of grains to the region of the sedimentary basin whereas carbonate originates within the sedimentary rocks

Any kind of heat and pressure results in what kind of rock?

Metamorphic

Any kind of erosion results in the formation of what

Sediment

Any kind of melting of rocks results in what kind of matter

magma and lava

Any kind of volcanic activity results in what kind of rock?

Igneous

What is a paradigm shift?

When a whole new way of thinking replaces an old and usual way of thinking

What is the difference between the oceanic and continental crust?

The oceanic crusts consists of MAFIC rock and is heavier than the continental crust. Because of this, the CC floats on top of the OC

In terms of convergent boundaries, which two crusts come together to form the island arc?

OC and OC

What is replacement in terms of fossilization?

Its common with vertebrate fossils and environmental changes would come and change the original material (like acid). Then, another medium would take its place and fossilize into its original skeleton

How do molds/casts work when it comes to fossilization?

The fossil fills with sediment, the original material dissolves, and an imprint is left in the sediment

What is the difference between biocoenosis and thanatocoenosis?

- Biocoenosis is when the organism is fossilized while moving → death mid run

- Thanatocoenosis is when fossilization occurs naturally after the death (when a fish dies, and it sinks to the bottom, and then it is preserved

What were vertebrates even before they became vertebrates

Chordates

What is the function of the postanal tail?

Locomotion

What is the key feature of vertebrates that sets them apart from invertebrates?

The creation of bone including cartilage

What did cuvier most prominently study?

Modern african and american elephant species to the elephant-like fossils found in the paris basin

What is anoxia?

It is when the bodies of water become oxygen depleted to which the sediments at the bottom of the bodies of water also become deoxygenated

What is one thing you need to do within sea water to generate a mass extinction event and why?

- A change in the sea level. This happens bc a change in the water levels directly impacts how much UV actually reaches the bottom of the sea to the coral reefs

- Areas that have much shallower water levels with species that require it get flooded when sea levels rise, and this is due to things like the glaciers melting and such.

What are minerals?

A naturally occurring solid crystalline substance

What is another name for Basaltic rocks?

MAFIC

What does MAFIC rock mean?

Magnesium and iron

What order does Sialtic and Mafic rock sit on each other

Since mafic rocks are heavy, they sit on the bottom and the sialtic rocks sit ontop of them

What are the three rock families?

Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary

What are sedimentary rocks?

They are formed through sediments of rock, through weathering and erosion usually

What is sedimentology?

A science of sediment history (like the environment of deposition)

What is an example of a secondary carbonate rock?

Dolostone

Dolostone

What are two types of evaporites in lec?

Halite and gypsum

Any kind of deposition results in what kind of rock?

Sedimentary

What was the continental drift and what caused it?

The movement of earth's tectonic plates caused the continents of the world to drift away

In terms of convergent boundaries, which two crusts come together to form the orogenic belt?

CC and CC

What is meant by the term evolutionary relatedness?

All living organisms sharing a common ancestor

What are the 4 types of ways things can becomes fossilized

- Replacement

-Original material (unaltered)

-molds/ casts/ imprints

-compression/carbonization

What is taphonomy?

What kind of events happened after the death of the organism that may have affected the preservation of that fossil

What is biostratinomy?

Study of environmental factors that take place after the death but before the burial of an organism

What is taxonomy?

The science of naming things///classifying things

What is the function of a notochord?

To resist axial compression

What is the function of the pharyngeal slit?

Feeding to respiration

The pharyngeal slit develops into a what for humans?

The pharynx

What was cuvier the founder of?

Vertebrate paleontology and comparative anatomy

What was the cuvier's weakness?

- He did not accept evolution, he only accepted extinction, he truly believed that evolution was the mechanism of catastrophe

- Because of this belief, he stated that periods of fossils (or the strata in which they belonged in) also belongs to periods of catastrophe

What is the extinction truth?

99.9% of all things that have ever lived are now extinct

What are the 5 palaeontological laws?

- Lineages become extinct

- Species longevity = 1/extinction rate

- Average originate rate is approximately the same as the average extinction rate

- Species richness arises from time varying origination and extinction rates

-Extinction erases a clade's history, in other words, if things don't become part of the fossil records, we won't ever know that they even existed

How can you tell anoxia has occurred when looking at fossils?

You will see black shales along a certain layer where it has occurred.

what are the 4 major eras?

Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, Precambrian

what are the periods of the Cenozoic? (3)

Tertiary, paleogene, neogene

what are the epochs of cenozoic? (4)

Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene,

what are the periods under mesozoic?

Triassic, jurassic, and cretaceous

what are the periods under paleozoic? (6)

- cambrian

- ordovican

- silurian

- devonian

- carboniferous

- permian

what are the three periods under precambrian?

hadean, Archean, Proterozoic

Were all the dated mass extinctions catastrophes?

No, there is not evidence of all the mass extinctions being caused by catastrophes

6-10 major extinctions were thought to have been linked to what three things?

Sea level change, temperature changes, and anoxia

How many major extinctions were there?

12

What are stromatolites?

They are photosynthetic cyanobacteria

What is the function of cyanobacteria?

To get together in colonies and pull calcium and carbonate under the sea