Exam 19: A Slow Unfolding: the History of Life on Earth

Refer to the scenario below, and then answer the following question(s). You are the managing naturalist for a natural history museum that has just received a batch of fossils from one of the field paleontologists sponsored by the museum. The note in the box states the fossils all came from the same rock layer. The museum is organized according to geologic timescale, and its management needs you to tell them to which department (based on era)and period specialist (an individual with experience with life-forms of a particular geologic-timescale period)the fossils should go. You find fossils of fish and seed-bearing plants but no reptiles or higher animals and no flowering plants. -To which era do these fossils belong?

Some rock strata associated with coal seams in Illinois,Ohio,and Pennsylvania can be shown to have the same mixture of pollen grain types.This suggests that these rocks are/were:

The first land vertebrates were the ________.

The greatest extinction event of all time occurred at the end of the:

Most evolutionary "branches" on the tree of life can read like the story of stepwise challenge and evolutionary innovation.For example,a cuticle solved the problem of maintaining moisture in the first terrestrial plants.Outline and explain the steps in the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates that lead to the evolution of mammals.

To be a successful cell evolutionarily,the earliest cells had to:

The Cambrian explosion of life is most notable for the:

Angiosperms are unique among plants because they produce ________.

Of the following groups,which have been in existence the longest?

You discover a single-celled organism that does not have a nucleus,and you also notice that the culture is producing methane.In which group would you place this organism?

Defend the following statement: Vascular tissue was,arguably,the most important evolutionary step,making possible the kinds of plant life we see today.

The evolution of which of the following biochemical processes changed the physical and chemical nature of Earth in such a way that most life-forms had to adapt radically or become extinct?

Which of the following statements best describes the history of life on Earth?

Which of the following is a correct sequence of events in the history of life on Earth?

What adaptations did ancient algae have to achieve as they washed ashore and evolved into the more advanced land plants we see today?

An organelle that probably evolved from an independent organism that moved inside and began to live within a eukaryotic cell is the:

During which of these eras were dinosaurs dominant?

The first vertebrates to develop jaws were the:

Mammals arose as a dominant life-form after which event?

The end of the ________ era was marked by a transition into an explosion of life-forms rather than an extinction event.