Exam 8: Fossils and Their Place in Time and Nature

At a site in the American Southwest,you find only a single ceramic pot in association with an individual within a burial.By which method can you use the pot to date the burial?

What do taphonomists study?

The molecular clock has been useful to determine the phylogenetic relationships of species based on what assumption?

Electron spin resonance dating can be used to determine the age of which type of material?

What is the study of fossils called?

Thermoluminescence dating can be used to determine the age of which types of materials?

What is the basic difference between relative and absolute dating?

Paleontologists find a fossil ape with long arms.What type of environment can they infer it inhabited?

Some of the best information on climate history over the last several million years is based on the study of:

Paleosols and fauna in the Middle Awash Valley of Ethiopia show that the earliest hominins lived in ________ settings.

Which dating method would be most appropriate for establishing the age of a volcanic ash layer from an early hominid site in eastern Africa?

A wooden tomb is discovered with a well-preserved mummy inside.Which of the following methods could be used to date the tomb most accurately?

What are the three eras that make up earth history?

Why is punctuated equilibrium an important addition to evolutionary theory?

What is the age of the earth?

How is the process of stratigraphic correlation carried out?

What is the most important variable in reconstructing ancient climate?

What is the continent that existed about 200 mya,from which the modern continents ultimately emerged,called?

What is the relationship between biostratigraphy and absolute dating?

In the 1600s,what did Nicolaus Steno propose?