Take notes on the activity and discuss the geologic time scale as you proceed. Make sure to include explanations for the following (you may include more):
a. Relative dating
Shows events in order of earliest to newest but doesn’t actually give you the dates, relative to rock layers
b. Absolute dating
Actual date of event
c. Approximately how old is the Earth?
4,600,000,000 years app
d. When did life first appear on the Earth?
e. Law of Superposition
As more and more layers are deposited, the older rock layers end up at the bottom of the sequence and the newer ones toward the top.
f. Vertical timeline (what does it demonstrate?)
It correlates with the law of superposition. The closer to the bottom of the timeline the older the date, the closer to the top the more recent.
g. Trilobites
Their bodies are divided into 3 lobes. They existed 540 million years ago.
h. Brachiopods
marine animals that look a bit like clams. They are still common in cold waters today, but the height of their diversity occurred about 400 million years ago
i. Radiometric dating
Since the chemical composition has changed through time at a certain rate, we can determine how old rocks are by analyzing their chemistry.
j. Eurypterids
one of the fiercest predators in ancient seas. Some reached more than two meters (six feet) in length, making them the largest arthropods that ever lived
k. Ammonites
a chambered mollusc not unlike the living Nautilus
l. Geologic Time Scale
It represents the entire history of the Earth since its formation, roughly 4.6 billion years ago.The Geologic Time Scale is broken up into several periods of time, during which there were great changes in the biodiversity on Earth.
m. Name the Eons and their major events
-Pre-Archean: No evidence for life at this time
-Archean: The first single celled organisms began to evolve
-Proterozoic: simple organisms, “before animal life”
-Phanerozoic: Abundant complex life on earth
n. Name the Eras and their major events
-Cenozoic: “recent life”-mammals, birds, flowering plants, ray-finned fishes
-Mesozoic: “middle life”- dinosaurs, cycads, ferns
-Paleozoic: “ancient life”- corals, brachiopods, sponge, trilobites
o. Name the Periods and their major events
-Quaternary: mammoths, mastodons, sabre-tooth, sloths, large mammals
-Tertiary: following a major extinction, is marked by the flourishing of flowering plants, grasslands, insects, teleost fish, and birds, as well as the mammals for which it is usually noted
-Cretaceous:first ceratopsian and pachycephalo- saurid dinosaurs appeared, and we find the first fossils of many insect groups, modern mammal and bird groups, and the first flowering plants.
-Jurassic: Great plant-eating dinosaurs roamed the earth, feeding on lush growths of ferns and palm-like cycads. Smaller but vicious carnivores stalked the great herbivores. Oceans were full of fish, squid, and coiled ammonites, along with great ichthyosaurs and long-necked plesiosaurs.
-Triassic:organisms of the Triassic included the holdovers from the Permian extinction (club mosses and “mammal-like” reptiles), as well as the appearance of ichthyosaurs (marine reptiles), pterosaurs, and modern conifers.
-Permian: land continents came together to form Pangaea; reptiles diversified; and the great forests of fern-like plants shifted to gymnosperms, plants with their offspring enclosed within seeds.
-Carboniferous: in reference to the rich deposits of coal that occur there. One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous was the amniote egg, which allowed the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles to reproduce on land.
-Devonian:By the end of the Devonian, ferns, horsetails and seed plants had appeared, producing the first trees and the first forests. Also during the Devonian, two major animal groups, the tetrapods and the arthropods, colonized the land, while brachiopods, ammonites, and new kinds of fish flourished in the oceans.
-Silurian:Coral reefs made their first appearance during the Silurian, and this was also a remarkable time in the evolution of fishes. We also have evidence of life on land, including relatives of spiders and centipedes, and the earliest fossils of vascular plants.
-Ordovician:diverse marine invertebrates and for the presence of the conodonts (early vertebrates).
-Cambrian:It is the time when most of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record.
p. When did humans come along?
Quaternary?
q. Take the quiz
7/10
r. What questions do you still have?
What defines each period and what causes these major changes in each time?
4. INDIVIDUALLY post a link in your online notebook OR copy and paste your notes directly into your online notebook
5. Link your finished notebook to this activity in ECHO INDIVIDUALLY when you are done
a. Relative dating
Shows events in order of earliest to newest but doesn’t actually give you the dates, relative to rock layers
b. Absolute dating
Actual date of event
c. Approximately how old is the Earth?
4,600,000,000 years app
d. When did life first appear on the Earth?
e. Law of Superposition
As more and more layers are deposited, the older rock layers end up at the bottom of the sequence and the newer ones toward the top.
f. Vertical timeline (what does it demonstrate?)
It correlates with the law of superposition. The closer to the bottom of the timeline the older the date, the closer to the top the more recent.
g. Trilobites
Their bodies are divided into 3 lobes. They existed 540 million years ago.
h. Brachiopods
marine animals that look a bit like clams. They are still common in cold waters today, but the height of their diversity occurred about 400 million years ago
i. Radiometric dating
Since the chemical composition has changed through time at a certain rate, we can determine how old rocks are by analyzing their chemistry.
j. Eurypterids
one of the fiercest predators in ancient seas. Some reached more than two meters (six feet) in length, making them the largest arthropods that ever lived
k. Ammonites
a chambered mollusc not unlike the living Nautilus
l. Geologic Time Scale
It represents the entire history of the Earth since its formation, roughly 4.6 billion years ago.The Geologic Time Scale is broken up into several periods of time, during which there were great changes in the biodiversity on Earth.
m. Name the Eons and their major events
-Pre-Archean: No evidence for life at this time
-Archean: The first single celled organisms began to evolve
-Proterozoic: simple organisms, “before animal life”
-Phanerozoic: Abundant complex life on earth
n. Name the Eras and their major events
-Cenozoic: “recent life”-mammals, birds, flowering plants, ray-finned fishes
-Mesozoic: “middle life”- dinosaurs, cycads, ferns
-Paleozoic: “ancient life”- corals, brachiopods, sponge, trilobites
o. Name the Periods and their major events
-Quaternary: mammoths, mastodons, sabre-tooth, sloths, large mammals
-Tertiary: following a major extinction, is marked by the flourishing of flowering plants, grasslands, insects, teleost fish, and birds, as well as the mammals for which it is usually noted
-Cretaceous:first ceratopsian and pachycephalo- saurid dinosaurs appeared, and we find the first fossils of many insect groups, modern mammal and bird groups, and the first flowering plants.
-Jurassic: Great plant-eating dinosaurs roamed the earth, feeding on lush growths of ferns and palm-like cycads. Smaller but vicious carnivores stalked the great herbivores. Oceans were full of fish, squid, and coiled ammonites, along with great ichthyosaurs and long-necked plesiosaurs.
-Triassic:organisms of the Triassic included the holdovers from the Permian extinction (club mosses and “mammal-like” reptiles), as well as the appearance of ichthyosaurs (marine reptiles), pterosaurs, and modern conifers.
-Permian: land continents came together to form Pangaea; reptiles diversified; and the great forests of fern-like plants shifted to gymnosperms, plants with their offspring enclosed within seeds.
-Carboniferous: in reference to the rich deposits of coal that occur there. One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous was the amniote egg, which allowed the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles to reproduce on land.
-Devonian:By the end of the Devonian, ferns, horsetails and seed plants had appeared, producing the first trees and the first forests. Also during the Devonian, two major animal groups, the tetrapods and the arthropods, colonized the land, while brachiopods, ammonites, and new kinds of fish flourished in the oceans.
-Silurian:Coral reefs made their first appearance during the Silurian, and this was also a remarkable time in the evolution of fishes. We also have evidence of life on land, including relatives of spiders and centipedes, and the earliest fossils of vascular plants.
-Ordovician:diverse marine invertebrates and for the presence of the conodonts (early vertebrates).
-Cambrian:It is the time when most of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record.
p. When did humans come along?
Quaternary?
q. Take the quiz
7/10
r. What questions do you still have?
What defines each period and what causes these major changes in each time?
4. INDIVIDUALLY post a link in your online notebook OR copy and paste your notes directly into your online notebook
5. Link your finished notebook to this activity in ECHO INDIVIDUALLY when you are done