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Fossils & Paleontology

49 cards · 🇺🇸 English

Fossils and the study of ancient life.

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Paleontology

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  1. 1Paleontology
    The scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils
  2. 2What did paleontologists use fossils for before extinction was understood?
    To classify organisms, measure geologic time, and assess interactions between prehistoric organisms and their natural environment
  3. 3What fields does paleontology overlap with most?
    Geology and biology, but also ecology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics
  4. 4Paleobiology
    A subdiscipline of paleontology analogous to biology, studying the biological aspects of prehistoric life
  5. 5Paleoecology
    A subdiscipline of paleontology analogous to ecology, studying the interactions of prehistoric organisms with their environments
  6. 6Body fossils
    Fossils made of the actual body parts of a dead organism, usually the hard parts that have been recrystallized by minerals
  7. 7Trace fossils
    Fossils consisting of traces of the behavior or life of organisms, including preserved burrows, footprints, or coprolites
  8. 8Coprolites
    Fossilized feces, a type of trace fossil
  9. 9Why are only a small minority of dead organisms preserved as fossils?
    Scavengers, decomposers, natural disasters, taphonomic processes, and weathering can destroy organisms before, during, or after fossilization
  10. 10Which habitats are more likely to produce fossils?
    Seafloors are more likely than land, and rivers or lakes are more likely than mountains or deserts
  11. 11Why are fossilized teeth very common?
    Because teeth are hard parts that resist decomposition and mineralize well
  12. 12Geologic time scale
    A scale of named geochronologic units created to separate and categorize Earth's vast history, defined by the International Commission on Stratigraphy
  13. 13How many eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages does the current geologic time scale recognize?
    Four eons, ten eras, 22 periods, 37 epochs, and 96 ages
  14. 14What age, epoch, period, era, and eon do we currently live in?
    Meghalayan age, Holocene epoch, Quaternary period, Cenozoic era, Phanerozoic eon
  15. 15Biochronology
    The correlation of taxa with time, allowing paleontological events like evolution, extinction, or speciation to be established at points in time
  16. 16What fundamental belief prevented recognition of extinction for most of recorded history?
    The belief of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle that anything that existed had existed forever and would exist forever
  17. 17What publication by Cuvier established extinction as a scientific principle?
    Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles (Investigations on fossil bones)
  18. 18What fossil taxon did Cuvier name based on bones found in Paraguay?
    Megatherium, whose large size made it unlikely to be from an undiscovered living animal
  19. 19What did Cuvier term the events that led to the disappearance of extinct megafauna?
    Revolutions, contrasting with the idea of gradual change
  20. 20Mass extinction event
    A period where a large percentage of organisms go extinct at once, occurring rapidly on the scale of geologic time
  21. 21How many major mass extinction events are recognized in Earth's history?
    At least five mass extinction events
  22. 22Background extinction rate
    Extinctions that occur as a result of various causes at differing times throughout Earth's history, accounting for most total species extinctions
  23. 23Pseudoextinction
    When one species evolves directly into another, making it difficult to differentiate from true extinction in the fossil record
  24. 24Natural selection
    A concept proposed by Darwin fundamental to the theory of evolution, where traits that improve survival are more likely to be passed on
  25. 25Transitional fossils
    Fossils that show intermediate forms between different groups of organisms, corroborating the theory of evolution
  26. 26Phyletic gradualism
    A hypothesis that evolutionary and morphological changes occur slowly and gradually over time
  27. 27Punctuated equilibrium
    A hypothesis that short bursts of rapid evolution occur, rather than slow gradual change
  28. 28How did Aristotle explain fossils?
    As 'vaporous exhalations'
  29. 29What did Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo propose based on petrified bamboo?
    A theory of climate change, noting that petrified bamboo was found in regions too dry for bamboo in his time
  30. 30What did Leonardo da Vinci observe about fossil shells?
    They had similar features to living mollusks, showed similar growth stages, and had similar pathologies, demonstrating an organic origin

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