If you haven't, listen to "I am a paleontologist". Straight gas.
Is there any organic matter in a fossil?
No
What is a varve?
An annually deposited layer of sediment on a lakebed.
Does K-Ar dating work on sedimentary rocks? Why?
No, it works from volcanic ash or lava which forms igneous or metamorphic rocks
What is the idea put forth by the endosymbiont hypothesis?
Eukaryotes probably arose by absorbing prokaryotes (Monera).
ENDOSYMBIOSIS means living symbiotically inside.
What is a stromatolite?
Layered bacterial and algal deposits.
Why does carbon dating only work on C-14?
Because other carbons either are stable or decay too quickly to be useful.
Can you date an actual organic sample based on K-Ar dating?
No, you can only date the sediment around it to get an aproximation
What were the first animals we know of and when did they appear?
EDIACARANS: soft-bodied marine animals,
700-600 MILLION YEARS AGO (Precambrian)
What are the three things needed for a fossil to form?
The carcass must be:
PROTECTED from being eaten or eroded
BURIED in sediment fine enough to preserve detail
WATER present at some point to help replace organic materials with minerals
Give a brief summary of the carbon dating process.
I will be the arbiter of truth for this question (as with every other)
What is the order of and what are the rough time periods that comprise the geologic time scale?
PRECAMBRIAN ERA
4 billion - 600 million years
PALEOZOIC ERA
600-250 million years
MESOZOIC ERA
250-65 million years
CENOZOIC ERA
65 million years - present
Why is a delta (or a lake or ocean floor) good for fossil formation?
Covers two of the primary needs: fine sediment and water.
What is the ratio (roughly) between carbon 12 and 14 in a living thing?
1 in 1 trillion are C-14
Why did we initially gain large quantities of oxygen in our atmosphere?
Cyanobacteria released it as a byproduct
What forms coal?
What is the half-life of C-14 and how long of a timespan is carbon dating accurate for?
5730 years, 50,000 years
What killed a vast portion of species on earth and caused red rock formations ~2 billion years ago?
oxygen polution