Semester 2 notes

Question 1

How old is the Earth?

Answer 1

4,600,000,000 / 4.6 billion years.

Question 2

What is the rhyme for the geological timescale?

Answer 2

Pregnant Camels Often Sit Down Carefully, Prehaps Their Joints Creak. Probably Not Quentin.

Question 3

What is the geological timescale?

Answer 3

Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Palaeogene, Neogene, Quaternary.

Question 4

What came firsts? Phanerozoic or Proterozoic Eon?

Answer 4

Proterozoic Eon.

Question 5

What Organism was found in the Proterozoic eon?

Answer 5

Eukaryotic a single celled organism.

Question 6

What was the first period of the Phanerozoic Eon?

Answer 6

The Cambrian.

Question 7

What is taxonomic rank?

Answer 7

Large groupings down to smaller ones, e.g. Kingdom is bigger than species.

Question 8

What are the three branches of the tree of life?

Answer 8

Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya.

Question 9

What are three things that are Eukarya?

Answer 9

Animals, plants and Slime molds.

Question 10

What does Pelagic mean?

Answer 10

Organisms who live in the water column, above the sea floor.

Question 11

What are the two divisions of Pelagic?

Answer 11

plankton (who float) and nekton (who swim).

Question 12

What does Benthic mean?

Answer 12

Organisms who live on the sea floor.

Question 13

What are the two divisions of Benthic?

Answer 13

epifauna (who live on the sea floor)

infauna (who live in the substrate).

Question 14

What is another word for trace fossil?

Answer 14

Ichnofossil,

Question 15

What do ichnofossil tell us?

Answer 15

The behaviors of animals, and so the conditions of the environment.

Question 16

What was the Hadean Earth like and when was it?

Answer 16

This was before any life on earth. There was no atmosphere or water and the earth was all molten.

Question 17

When was there no core or magnetic field?

Answer 17

Before -4 Ga

Question 18

What happened because there was no magnetic field?

Answer 18

Solar wind swept away any atmospheric gasses

Question 19

When could gasses build up and from what?

Answer 19

After -4 Ga.

Question 20

What was the early atmosphere rich in?

Answer 20

CO2, H2O, NH3 and CH4.

Question 21

Where did water vapour come from?

Answer 21

Volcanic outgassing, meteorites and icy comets.

Question 22

Was spontaneous generation how life began?

Answer 22

No.

Question 23

What is inorganic model and was this how life began?

Answer 23

This is the bonding of chains and molecules, and has yet to be recreated so no.

Question 24

Does life have an extraterrestrial origin?

Answer 24

The element may have came from meteorites but this creates more questions then answers.

Question 25

What is needed for the biochemical model?

Answer 25

C, H, O and N. | Energy for chemical reactions (Lightning, primordial heat and UV)

Question 26

What was the hypothesis for life evolving?

Answer 26

Oparin-Haldane Hypothesis 1920s.

Question 27

What experiment recreated the hypothesis for life?

Answer 27

Miller-Urey experiment 1950s.

Question 28

How does the hydrothermal model differ from the Oparin-Haldane Hypothesis?

Answer 28

This factored in heat from volcanoes.

Question 29

Black smokers tell us what about life?

Answer 29

That is can live in similar conditions to what it was like for early life.

Question 30

What else is studied for life other than black smokers?

Answer 30

Yellowstone geothermal spring.

Question 31

What are protocells?

Answer 31

Non-living systems.

Question 32

What life like characteristics do protocells have?

Answer 32

A body, metabolism (ability to do something with provided material) and inheritable information. The can fuse to become more complex, grow, eat and self replicate.

Question 33

What can RNA (Ribonucleic acid) act as and do?

Answer 33

It can act as a gene (information) and an enzyme (catalyst). This could have made more complex cells.

Question 34

What does errors in cell replication enable?

Answer 34

Rapid diversification and survival of the fittest to occur..

Question 35

What was the likely way complex cells were held together?

Answer 35

Lipid membranes that draw in RNA as it hydrates but does not release it as it dehydrates.

Question 36

When was the oldest evidence for life?

Answer 36

-3.6 Ga.

Question 37

What carbon is used up during photosynthesis?

Answer 37

C13

Question 38

What carbon is abundant in rocks when photosynthesis occurs on earth?

Answer 38

C12, as the C13 is being used up.

Question 39

C12 abundance was found in which rock belt along with what other evidence?

Answer 39

The Isua Greenstone Belt, with stromatolites.

Question 40

What are stromatolites? Where do they occur?

Answer 40

A laminated or mounded structure, built up over long periods of time by successive layers or mats of cyanobacteria that trapped sedimentary material. Shallow marine environments.

Question 41

Where are stromatolites found today?

Answer 41

Shark Bay, Western Australia.