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  • Early/first life

    • 3.8 bya cyanobacteria

  • Geological eras

    • Paleozoic - life

      • Up to 300 mya

    • Mesozoic - middle life

      • 300 - 65 mya

    • Cenozoic - modern life

      • 65 mya - present

  • Diversity of life

    • Insects have most species (most biodiversity)

  • Scientific History

    • Linnaeus - concept of species

    • Darwin - evolution

      • People in galapagos could identify tortoise island based on shell

      • Finches had diff beaks on diff islands

      • Natural selection - climate quite diff btw islands

        • Led to speciation of tortoises when sea level rose

        • Led to speciation of finches for food sources

  • Allopatric vs. sympatric speciation

    • Allopatric: complete isolation that leads to speciation via natural selection

      • Ex: tortoises

    • Sympatric: only functionally separated but speciation still occurs via natural selection

      • Ex:  finches

  • Protists in fossil record

    • Algae

    • Phytoplankton

      • Forams, dinoflagellates, radiolarians

    • Amoeba

  • Plant kingdom

    • Gymnosperm: conifers, dominated mesozoic

    • Angiosperm: flowering plants, fruits spread seeds, dominate cenozoic (evolved 100 mya)

  • Animal kingdom, deuterostomes, etc

  • Mass extinction, evolutionary radiations and adaptive breakthroughs

    • After mass extinctions, diversity increases bc niches open up

    • Used to be more niches than organisms to fill them, but now there's an organism or multiple for niches

    • Evolutionary radiation examples

      • Jurassic corals

        • Symbiotic relationship w zooxanthellae

          • Zooxanthellae cant handle heat

          • Makes coral vulnerable since coral became dependent

        • Porous skeletons

          • Grow more quickly

          • Take up more space and outcompete coral neighbors

      • Post cretaceous mammals

        • Dinos were filling the niches

        • Extinction of dinos allowed for rise of mammals

  • Cope's law

    • Animals get larger as they evolve

    • Exception: dwarfism on small islands - large size unnecessary

  • Climate belts on land (tropics, desert, horse lats) & in ocean

    • Rains in tropics bc humid warm air rises, cools, can't hold water, rains

    • Horse lats: 30-38 degrees N & S, deserts

      • Erratic winds - horses got kicked off boats when ran out of wind

  • Coriolis

    • Clockwise gyres in northern hemisphere

Counterclockwise gyres in southern hemisphere

  • Thermohaline Circulation

  • Great conveyor belt

  • Surface current moves to N Atlantic

    • Well oxygenated & nutrient poor

  • Gets cold & wants to sink

  • Sea ice forms → surrounding water is salty

  • Cold + salty water = negatively buoyant → sinking

  • Deep current becomes anoxic without access to surface

  • Organic matter sinks to anoxic level, gets buried

  • Upwelling brinks deep water to surface

  • Structure of atoms, atomic number & weight etc

    • Atomic #: # of protons

    • # of neutrons = # of protons

      • Except in isotopes

    • Atomic weight = weight of neutrons + weight of protons

  • Ooids

    • Calcium carbonate (limestone) forms around nucleus being moved back and forth by strong currents

    • Water needs to be supersaturated with carbonate

      • Conditions exist in bahamas, red sea, australia

    • Aragonite

      • Used to be calcite



  • Sedimentary rocks have fossils

  • Silica fossils make chert

Carbonate fossils make chalk