Middle and Recent Earth History — Unit test Answers

What are the types of unconformities that can occur in rock layers?

Fossil age can determine organism changes related to the time scale.

Actual age refers to the relative age, while comparison age refers to absolute age.

The breakup of Pangea caused climate changes that caused organisms to adapt or die off, this occured during the Paleozoic era.

90 % of marine organisms and 70% of land organisms died off due to environmental and/or climate changes during the Paleozoic Era.

Describe beta decay.

Other than dinosaurs, what life forms existed during the Mesozoic Era?

A sample of a radioactive element has a mass of 80 g. How much parent and daughter materials are in the sample after two half-lives?

Explain the principle of superposition in your own words.

Describe some of the changes in the land and in life-forms that occurred at the end of the Paleozoic Era.

What changes were necessary in Earth’s atmosphere to allow complex organisms to evolve?

Figure 13-1

Why do a chicken embryo and a cow embryo look very similar even though the adults do not?

Fossils provide scientists with evidence that allows them to hypothesize how living organisms have evolved over time. Tiktaalik roseae was a unique organism that has been nicknamed the “fishapod” because it is believed to be a species had traits of both fish and tetrapods, the first four-legged animals.Which evidence would scientist use to make the connection between ancestry of fish and tetrapods using Tiktaalik roseae?

What were some of the earliest forms of life on Earth?