Deck 8: Fossils and Their Place in Time and Nature

Question 1

Which era saw the proliferation of mammals?

A)Holocene
B)Cenozoic
C)Jurassic
D)Mesozoic

Answer 1

Cenozoic

Question 2

What do taphonomists study?

A)human cultural remains
B)human genetics
C)the processes that affect an organism's remains after death
D)the processes that affect a living organism through life

Answer 2

the processes that affect an organism's remains after death

Question 3

What are eras?

A)divisions in geologic time divided into periods and epochs
B)any time period in the past
C)divisions of time based on cultural standards,as in "Stone Age"
D)the time frames during which a certain fossil species existed

Answer 3

divisions in geologic time divided into periods and epochs

Question 4

If fossil species A is consistently recovered from geological deposits beneath layers containing fossil species B,then A is considered older than B.On what principle is this relative dating technique based?

A)superposition
B)paleomagnetism
C)fluorine analysis
D)geolayering

Question 5

What is the study of what happens to an organism's remains after death?

A)archaeology
B)cryptozoology
C)forensic biology
D)taphonomy

Question 6

What is the basic difference between relative and absolute dating?

A)the use of species
B)the use of bones and teeth
C)the use of years to express the age
D)the use of wood

Question 7

What are the three eras that make up earth history?

A)strata,stratigraphy,and striations
B)Pliocene,Pleistocene,and Holocene
C)Early,Middle,and Upper Miocene
D)Paleozoic,Mesozoic,and Cenozoic

Question 8

During the Holocene artifacts like ________ began to appear.

A)bones and teeth
B)ceramics
C)shell
D)wood objects

Question 9

Which of the following sedimentary environments is most likely to destroy bone and thus contain few if any fossils?

A)a limestone cave filling rapidly with sediment in a semi-arid region
B)acidic sediment with plenty of groundwater
C)slowly accumulating sediment so bones remain on the surface for a long time
D)rapidly deposited neutral (not acidic or basic)sediment such as in a rift valley

Question 10

Who was the English surveyor who developed the technique of stratigraphic correlation between regions?

A)William Smith
B)Charles Lyell
C)Alfred Wallace
D)Richard Owen

Question 11

Most of the early hominin fossils discovered in Africa come from the eastern and southern parts of the continent.Why is this?

A)More populations of early hominin species lived in these areas and nowhere else.
B)Only these areas were conducive to sustaining life.
C)These areas provided better preservation of fossils.
D)Many villagers in these areas gather fossils to sell.

Question 12

What is the relationship between biostratigraphy and absolute dating?

A)If the index fossil is found in unambiguously dated contexts in the same region,absolute dating methods can make the index fossil's use more accurate.
B)Biostratigraphy is only used on sites where layers have already been dated with absolute radiometric techniques.
C)Biostratigraphy always follows and is used to calibrate absolute dating methods.
D)They are often used together because bone is limited to biostratigraphic dating,while rock surrounding it is limited to absolute dating.

Question 13

What is the age of the earth?

A)4.6 billion years
B)3.4 billion years
C)6,000 years
D)12 billion years

Question 14

Igneous rock can be dated with which of the following methods?

A)radiopotassium dating
B)dendrochronology
C)radiocarbon dating
D)flourine dating

Question 15

In the 1600s,what did Nicolaus Steno propose?

A)the principle of uniformitarianism
B)taphonomy
C)the law of stratigraphy
D)the law of superposition

Question 16

To reconstruct and interpret evolutionary changes,it is crucial to place each fossil in time.What is the resulting "placement" called?

A)a chronological sequence
B)an era
C)a period
D)a phylogeny

Question 17

What can cultural dating be used to date?

A)ceramics
B)bones and teeth
C)shells
D)trilobite evolution

Question 18

What is crucial to creating a fossil record of a species?

A)a living form of the fossil species
B)a good representation in the fossil record
C)the preservation of soft tissue such as muscle
D)the lack of dating;knowing the age of the fossil introduces biases

Question 19

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

A)Eurasia
B)Afrinesia
C)Australasia
D)Pangaea

Question 20

What is the study of fossils called?

A)phylogeny
B)biology
C)chronometry
D)paleontology

Question 21

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

A)wooded
B)unwooded grassland
C)marshy
D)desert

Question 22

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)carbon 14 dating
B)amino acid dating
C)potassium-argon dating
D)electron spin resonance dating

Question 23

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?

A)superposition
B)electron spin resonance
C)thermoluminescence
D)dendrochronology

Question 24

What is the most important variable in reconstructing ancient climate?

A)weather
B)sea levels
C)temperature estimated using any of several methods
D)isotope ratios

Question 25

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

A)savannah
B)woodland
C)grassland
D)swamp

Question 26

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

A)amino acids.
B)foraminifera.
C)radioisotopes.
D)dendrochronology.

Question 27

How is the process of stratigraphic correlation carried out?

A)by matching strata by chemical composition and color from several sites across distances
B)by correlating stratigraphic markers found at different depths in one location
C)by matching stratigraphy from known sites only
D)by dating through the use of a chronometric method

Question 28

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

A)wood
B)igneous rock
C)teeth
D)soft tissue such as muscle

Question 29

For directly dating hominin fossils from several thousand to about a million years old,what dating method might be used?

A)electron spin resonance
B)fission track dating
C)radiopotassium dating
D)dendrochronology

Question 30

Based on the molecular clock,when do geneticists believe the split between chimps and hominins occurred?

A)10-12 mya
B)8-10 mya
C)6-8 mya
D)4-6 mya

Question 31

What type of dating method is fluorine dating an example of?

A)chronometric
B)nonrelative
C)chemical
D)genetic

Question 32

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

A)A species lineage accumulates genetic differences over time at a constant rate.
B)Only some species are genetically related.
C)DNA is preserved unchanged over long periods of time.
D)Species adapt at specific rates.

Question 33

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

A)sediment,stone,and ceramics
B)bone,wood,and stone
C)bone,shell,and fabric
D)shell,ceramics,and wood

Question 34

A hearth is discovered with bone fragments in it.Which of the following methods might be used to date the bone fragments?

A)dendrochronology
B)electron spin resonance
C)fission track
D)amino acid method

Question 35

A mummy is discovered whose stone tomb includes cloth,food,and other organic remains.What dating method would most likely be used to date the tomb?

A)biostratigraphy
B)carbon 14
C)dendrochronology
D)electron spin resonance

Question 36

What was the climate like when early hominins first appeared,about 5-10 mya?

A)increasingly wet and rainy
B)increasingly hot and humid
C)increasingly dry and seasonal
D)less temperate

Question 37

What is an index fossil?

A)a fossil found in a particular site
B)the ideal specimen of that species that all later descriptions must refer to
C)a marker used to determine the age of a geological layer
D)the type specimen of a species

Question 38

What can scientists use to determine the type of plant an organism consumed?

A)carbon 14
B)radioisotopes
C)index fossils
D)carbon 13 and carbon 12

Question 39

Fission track dating can be used to determine the age of which type of material?

A)sedimentary rock
B)shell
C)bone
D)volcanic ash and obsidian

Question 40

Analysis of stable carbon isotopes in ________ can provide information on ancient diet.

A)shellfish food remains
B)cloth from clothing
C)bones and teeth
D)wood

Question 41

What was the Pleistocene characterized by during crucial periods of human evolution?

A)massive glaciation,then warm interglacials
B)high humidity
C)aridity then humidity
D)glaciation then aridity

Question 42

What do studies of temperatures during the Cenozoic era suggest?

A)Temperatures have steadily increased over time.
B)Temperatures have steadily decreased over time.
C)Temperatures have fluctuated,sometimes greatly,over time.
D)Temperatures have stayed basically the same over time.

Question 43

How did dating methods help to support the theory of natural selection and biological evolution over other nineteenth-century or earlier ideas?

Question 44

Why is punctuated equilibrium an important addition to evolutionary theory?

Question 45

How does Steno's law of superposition support relative and absolute dating methods?

Question 46

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?

A)biostratigraphic dating,because there may be animal remains inside the pot
B)cultural dating,since the pot may date to a known culture and time period
C)radiopotassium dating of the material used to make the pot
D)fission track dating of the pot itself

Question 47

Differentiate between absolute and relative dating techniques,giving one example of each.

Question 48

What is the time it takes for 50% of an unstable isotope to decay to a stable form called?

A)semichron
B)middlemorph
C)demidose
D)half-life