Geology 1B                                                                                                                           West Valley College

Historical Geology                                                                                                 R. Lopez

Study Questions 14: Neocambrian, Paleozoic Life

1)       What is the age of the Ediacaran Fauna? What type of organisms formed the Ediacara Fauna?

 

 

2)       What adaptive breakthrough did organisms have to start leaving a strong fossil record in the Cambrian?

 

 

3)       Why did trilobites leave such a conspicuous fossil record?

 

 

4)       Why are the Cambrian echinoderms known as bizarre echinoderms (these are the Helicoplacoids)?  See page 348 for section about evolutionary Experimentation.

 

 

 

5)       What is the significance of the Burgess Shale Fauna (see page 349)?

 

 

 

6)       After the Trilobites, what group was most abundant in the early Paleozoic?

 

 

 

7)       How are brachiopods differentiated from bivale Mollusks?

 

 

 

8)       What two groups showed dramatic evolution during the Orodovician?

 

 

 

9)       What are graptolites?

 

 

10)    What are Nautiloid Cephalopods, what phylum do they belong to, and how large did they become in the Ordovician?

 

 

11)    What phylum are corals and what two species develop in the Ordovician?

 

 

 

12)    When were the stalked echinoderms most abundant? Sketch a crinoid including arms, calyx, and stem and show the shape of the stem discs.

 

 

 

13)    What caused the great mass extinction at the end of the Ordovician?

 

14)    What is the name for jawless fishes?

 

 

 

15)    When did the ostracoderms (agnatha) first show up in fossil record?

 

 

 

16)    What are the highlights of the Middle Paleozoic Time – Silurian-Devonian (eight topics)?

 

 

 

17)    How did jaws evolve?

 

 

 

18)    How do fish use gills? Do fish get more oxygen by gulping more water through their gills?  Would it be beneficial for fish to grow larger gill archs so that it could get more oxygen? (read box 14-1, page 378)

 

19)    What are fish with jaws called?

 

 

 

20)    By late Silurian time, two branches of jawed fishes developed.  These are?

 

 

 

21)    What type of fish belonged to the group known as Placoderms (see page 377)?

 

 

 

22)    What are lob-finned fish called? What are some of the characteristics of lobe-finned fish? Are most lobe-finned fish fresh or salt water species (see page 379)?

 

 

 

23)    What role do the Rhipidisitians (Crossopterygians) play in the evolution of amphibians?

 

 

 

24)    What was Ichthyostega and what are some of its characteristics?

 

 

 

25)    All plants can be grouped into two groups. Name these.

 

 

 

26)    How do vascular plants work? What are the three groups of vascular plants?

 

 

 

27)    What obstacle did plants need to overcome when moving from sea to land?

 

 

 

28)    What do vascular plants with spores need in order to fertilize their spores?  Where did these plants live?

 

 

29)    What is the difference between today’s lycopods and the middle Devonian lycopods?

 

 

 

30)    What adaptive breakthrough did plants have in the late Devonian that allowed them to move away from water?

 

 

31)    What are gymnosperms and what are angiosperms?

 

 

32)    What are conifers? What is a cycad?

 

 

33)    What are fusilinids, where did they live, how large were they, when did they become extinct, and what was their chemistry?

 

 

34)    How do late Carboniferous flying insects differ from modern flying insects?

 

 

 

35)    By the end of the Permian, amphibians began to lose out to what new taxa?

 

 

 

36)    What was the most important way reptiles differed from amphibians?

 

 

 

37)    What did the adaptive breakthrough of the amniote egg allow reptiles to do?

 

 

 

38)    The second way reptiles differed from amphibians were by their advanced _____________ and blade-like _______________.

 

 

39)    What are the pelycosaurs and what are their characteristics?

 

 

40)    What are ectothermic organisms?

 

 

41)    What are the characteristics of all reptiles?

 

 

 

42)    What group was the descendants of pelycosaurs?

 

 

 

43)    What are the characteristics of therapsids?

 

 

 

44)    Describe heterodont dentition.

 

 

45)    What are endothermic organisms?

 

 

 

46)    What landmass did therapsids dominate? Why did reptiles and amphibians like Euramerica?

 

 

 

47)    Reptiles can be divided into three major groups by the end of the Permian period.  What are these three groups and how are they identified?

 

 

48)    Name a modern anapsid. Who were the diapsids and name a modern diapsid. Who were the synapsids (three groups).

 

 

49)    What is the clad relationship between pelycosaurs, therapsids, and mammals (all these are synapsids)?

 

 

50)    What occurred at the end of the Permian period? What percentage of species of earth died out?

 

 

 

51)    What evidence is there for a meteor/asteroid impact? What are buckminsterfullerenes?