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59 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
What is Catastrophism? and who proposed this?
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This states that the earth's landscapes have been developed primarily by great catastrophe's. James Usher proposed this
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What is Uniformitarianism? And who made the counter-proposal?
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This states the physical, chemical and biological laws that operate today have also operated in geologic past. "the present is the key to the past"**
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What can we determi ne within the geologic time?
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the *relative* sequence of events.
but not the exact age. very accurate. Critical to the early understanding of geology |
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What were Nicolaus Steno's laws?
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-Principle of Super position
-Principle of Original Horizontality -Orinciple of Original lateral Continuity -Principle of Cross-cutting Relationships -Principle of Inclusions |
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what is the Principle of Origin Horizontally?
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-(sedimentary) rocks on the bottom are older than the ones on the top.
-oldest sediments are deposited first |
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What is the Principle of Origin lateral continuity?
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Sedimentary rocks generally acumulate in wide-spread, sheet-like deposits, thinning laterally.
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What is the Principle of Cross-cutting Relationships?
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faults and igneous intrusions are younger than the rocks they cut across.
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What is the Principle of Inclusions?
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Rock gragments caught up in igneous intrusions or in sedimentary rocks must have been there first.
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What are unconformities? *memorize*
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-a time-gap in the geologic record where there is not continuous depostion between the layers on top and the layers below.
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What do unconformities indicate?
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low sea level
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What are the three kinds?
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-angular uncomforties
-disconformities -unconformities |
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What is an angular conformity?
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an unconformity in which younger sediments rest upon the reoded surgace of tilted or folded older rocks
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What is a disconformity?
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an unconformity between beds that are parallel.
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What is a nonconformity?
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an unconformity between unstratified igneous rocks below and stratified generally sedimentary rcks above
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What did william smith discover
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that sequence of rocks were similar over great distances using fossils
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What is the principle of Fossile Succession?
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Fossil organisms succeed one another in a deinite and determinable order
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what is an index fossil?
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Unique and geographically widespread.
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What are the different types of marker beds?
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-Volcanic ash
-meteorite dust -glacial till -evaporite deposits |
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When was radioactivity discovered?
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1896
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what is an isotope?
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an element with several atomic weights due to differences in the number of neutrons in the nucleus.
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what is a closed system involving isotopes?
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mineral incorpoates only parent and no daughetr isotopes
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What are the common isotopes?
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Carbon and Nitrogen (younger)
Uranium and Theranium (older) |
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What are branded iron formations?
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chert layers alternating with layers of irn-rich semdiment
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what is life during Proterzoic eon?
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stromatolites and multicelled animals
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When was the rise of photosynthesus?
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Proterozoic eon
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What was land like in the proterzoic?
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Supercontinent Rodinia
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During the Cambrian period, what was happening to the continents?
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They stood high above sea level as the rodinian supercontinent, This was also breaking apart.
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What is transgression?
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sea level rises
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what is regression?
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sea level falls
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During the Permian period where were evaporites located?
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during the equator
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What was happening to the climate during the ordovician period?
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glaciation was effecting sea level which leads to extinction
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what was the life in the silurian period?
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-Paleozoic reefs.
-First preserved fish! -Spore plants expanded |
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What was te silurian climate?
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-Climates were relatively warm and dry
-high sea level |
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What was happening to the plate tectonics during the Devonian period?
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continued high sea levels.
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What was devonian life?
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-placoderms (crabs, lobster)
-sharks -ray-finned fishes (dominant fishes today -lobed finned fishes - single boned fin |
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What was spreading during the Devonian Period?
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Spread of forest's
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During the devonian period there was global cooling which caused what?
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Mass extinction
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What was the dominant vertabrets into the Carboniferous?
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Amphibians
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What evolved late into the Carboniferous
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Fixed wings
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What land formation was being created in the Carboniferous period?
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Appalachian Mountains
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What was the climate like in the Permian period?
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-Dry climates
-no coal swamps -conifers instead -evaporite near the equator |
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What was were amphibians becoming displaced by in the Permian period?
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mammal-like reptiles and by fin-backed reptiled
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What happened by the end of the Permian period?
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A mass extinction totaling in 95% or all marine specied.
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What was the plate textonix like in Triassic and Jurrassic periods?
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Nealy all of the Earth's continental crust was together in another supercontinent PANGEA!
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What happened because of Pangea?
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land fossiles spanned all or most of the supercontinents
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When did Pangea start to Rift?
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Later in the Triassic
-opening Tethys -then much later opening the Atlantic Ocean from South to North -Sea level began to rise in the Jurassic |
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What was living within Mesozoic Oceans?
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Invertebrate animals, mollsucs
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what are gymnosperms?
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Naked seed plants (pine cones)
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at what period did mamls start to evolve?
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Triassic
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what were a pterosaurs?
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they are soaring reptiles
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at what age did Dinosaurs dominate?
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Triassic
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What happened in Cretaceous?
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-Flower plants (angiosperms)
-Chalk (Creta) -High sea level covered Texas, producing limestones |
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What coevolved with the dinosaurs during the Cretaceous?
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Flowers
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During the Palogene and Neogene what happened to the continents?
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-South American and Australia broke away from Antarctica
-Antarctica left isolated over the south poles -Europe and Greenland were last to separate |
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Radiation of species adpated where during the Palogene and Neogene periods?
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Drier climates
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What are majoradaptive radiations/
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frogs,rats,mice,songbirds,snakes,large gazing animals, apes.
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What is Australopithecus?
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oldest known genus of family hominidae, it evolved about 4 million years ago from apes, not monkeys!
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What is homo?
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the modern genus of the gamily homindae evolved about 2.5 million years ago.
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When did hte modern ice age begin? and when did glaciers begin to retreat?
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3.2 ma. 15,000 years.
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