Geology 105 - Paleontology
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Potential Final Questions

If you plan to copy these files to disc and print them later, remember to save the diagram as well (click on it with the right hand mouse button and hold, then select "Save this image as").

Short Answer:

1. Explain at least four functions of skeletons in animals.
2. What does the accompanying graph (to be provided) tell you about the growth pattern and rate of this fossil organism?
3. Describe three different sources of variation within a population and give an example of how to recognize each one in fossil organisms.
4. List and describe at least five characteristics of a good index fossil.
5. Give five reasons why biostratigraphic correlations may not represent true time correlations.
6. Illustrate and define each of these kinds of zones: taxon range zone, interval zone, concurrent range zone, assemblage zone.
7. Explain why notions of "racial senescence" are not compatible with current understanding of evolutionary mechanisms.
8. Ammonites have a very high rate of speciation. Explain why this might be, and why this may have made them more likely to die in the K-T extinction than the nautiloids.
9. Two paleontologists are arguing about whether the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceaous was caused by an asteroid impact or a volcanic eruption. They are considering this data about the fossil ranges of different ammonites in the latest Cretaceous. Do these data (to be provided)support either or both of the asteroid or volcanic hypothese? Explain your reasoning.
10. Here are the ranges of a set of fossil from two different areas (to be provided). Draw the ranges and graph their occurrences. What can you conclude from the data?

Essay:

1. Explain the possible causes of the Permo-Triassic extinction in terms of physical environment, biological environment, and speciation rates. Include a discussion of the evidence against the impact hypothesis for the Permo-Triassic.

2. Explain the potential physical and biological effects of an asteroid or comet impact on the earth, and discuss how well the data from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary fit this model.

3. The diagram below shows the ranges of fossils collected in the Podunk Sandstone and Durnit Shale in the Middle-of-Nowhere Range. Fossil C was abundant everywhere it was found; the other fossils were much rarer.

a. Devise a zonation for the Middle-of-Nowhere Range based upon these fossils (you can draw it right on the diagram). Name each zone after one of the fossil species found there.

b. Identify what kind of zone each of your zones is.

c. Identify which zonal boundaries you have the most confidence in, and which you have the least confidence in. Cite your reasons for your confidence or lack thereof.

d. Give at least 5 reasons why the bottom of the range of species B may not be accurate.

e. How would your zonation change if you knew that species A and B are benthic? Why?

4. You find a previously unknown fossil organism. Here are two graphs you plot from the data you collect on this organism. Describe as much information about this organism as you can infer from these graphs.