Time Periods of Earth
The Earth is approximately this many billion years old
4.6 Billion
This acronym refers to the very first living thing
IDA (Initial Darwinian Ancestor)
Burrows and footprints are?
Trace fossils
This biome is characterized by a "permafrost" layer and a positive feedback loop where melting releases CO2.
Tundra
This biome is characterized by high, constant temperatures and heavy rainfall year-round, resulting in the highest biodiversity of any terrestrial ecosystem.
Tropical Rainforest
This massive diversification of animal phyla occurred roughly 540 million years ago.
Cambrian Explosion
Unlike DNA, this molecule has the unique ability to both carry information and catalyze chemical reactions.
RNA
A ________ fossil is when minerals fill in the pores of the organism over time.
permineralized
In this biome, vegetation is often protected against grazers and trees may shed leaves when water-stressed.
Tropical Seasonal Forest/Savanna
In this biome, extremely low precipitation and high evaporation rates create a harsh environment where plants often have succulent stems to store water.
Name all the Paleozoic periods in order and name at least defining trait about each.
Cambrian: animal diversification
Ordovician: first land plants
Silurian: bony fishes
Devonian: tetrapods
Carboniferous: reptiles
Permian: extinction at the end
This acronym stands for the most recent common ancestor of all extant organisms
LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor)
This type of rock is where most fossils are found due to the process of deposition and solidification.
Sedimentary rock
These geographic features can create "rain shadows," marking boundaries between different biomes.
Mountains
This relatively rare biome is found in coastal areas with high humidity and significant rainfall; it features huge evergreen trees, mosses, and epiphytes. An example is the Pacific Northwest.
Temperate Rainforest
Contrast the three types of plate boundaries: Divergent, Convergent, and Transform.
Divergent: plates moving apart (ex. ocean floor)
Convergent: plates moving together (ex. mountains)
Transform: plates drifting past one another (ex. earthquakes)
This meteorite provided evidence that organic compounds like purines and pyrimidines were present in the early solar system
Murchison Meteorite
Name the 3 types of fossil biases and describe them.
Geographical bias: Organisms living in depositional environments (like marine shelves or basins) are more likely to be fossilized than those in upland areas.
Taxonomic Bias: Organisms with hard parts are preserved much more frequently than soft-bodied organisms.
Temporal Bias: Younger rocks are more common than older rocks because older rocks are more likely to have been destroyed by subduction or erosion
This biome, common in California, is known for frequent fires and fire-resistant seeds.
Woodland/Shrubland/Mediterranean/Chaparral
This biome experiences moderate precipitation and distinct seasons. The trees here are typically deciduous, dropping their leaves in the winter to conserve water.
Temperate Seasonal Forest
This epoch, lasting the last 10,000 years, includes the rise of agriculture and a potential new mass extinction.
Holocene
A geologist is using Carbon-14 dating to determine the age of a prehistoric wooden tool. The half-life of Carbon-14 is approximately 5000 years. If the tool currently contains only one-fourth (1/4) of the Carbon-14 that a living tree would have, how many half-lives have passed, and approximately how old is the tool?
2 half lives, 10,000 years old.
_______ is when a species changes so much morphologically that it becomes a chronospecies. What has happened to the previous species?
Anagenesis; pseudoextinction
Also known as "Taiga," this biome consists of evergreen conifers and has very long, cold winters.
Boreal Forest
Often called "prairies" or "steppes," this biome has rich, deep soils but lacks enough rainfall to support large forests, making it ideal for large grazing mammals.
Temperate Grassland