Topic 9: The Origin Of Life

Question 1

Adaptation

Answer 1

The ability to change over time in response to the environment

Question 2

What is a virus

Answer 2

A parasitic entity that exploits an organism to do basic functions.

Question 3

What do viruses have

Answer 3

Nucleic acids to replicate, mutate and respond to natural selection

Question 4

What do viruses lack?

Answer 4

Metabolism, homeostasis, and cant reproduce

Question 5

Do we consider viruses to be alive

Answer 5

No

Question 6

Three eons of geologic records

Answer 6

Archean, proerozoic and phanerozoic

Question 7

______ includes the last half billion years and ecompassesses multicellular eukaryotic life

Answer 7

Phanerozoic

Question 8

List the three eras of the phanerozoic eon

Answer 8

Paleozoic, mesozoic and cenozoic

Question 9

_____ provides evidence of evolutionary history

Answer 9

Fossils

Question 10

Fossil records are _____ and ____

Answer 10

Biased, incomplete

Question 11

Why are fossils biased and incomplete?

Answer 11

• not all organisms were fossilized
• require burial sediment to form
• some organisms were fossilized under some conditions

Question 12

Types of fossil records

Answer 12

Cast, replacement, trace or preserved fossil

Question 13

Fossil type formed when minerals fill space in sediment where organisms decays, making a mold of the organism

Answer 13

Cast

Question 14

Fossil type where fossils have their tissues replaced by minerals

Answer 14

Replacement (petrified fossils)

Question 15

Fossil that record evidence of behaviour such as footprints, burrows, feces

Answer 15

Trace

Question 16

Fossil type that retain orginial organic materual (carbon films, amber, frozen, etc)

Answer 16

Preserved

Question 17

Two ways to determine the age of a fossil

Answer 17

Relative dating and radiometric dating

Question 18

Relative dating

Answer 18

Analyzing and comparing positions of sedimentary strata. Helps tells which fossil came first, second, third

Question 19

Challenges to relative dating

Answer 19

• Sediments become tipped or shifted during land movements
• gaps in the sediment
• does not provide the absolute age of a fossil/ how long it was created

Question 20

Radiometric dating (absolute dating)

Answer 20

Analyzing the radioactive decay and the half life of isotopes (example carnbon 14 and carbon 12, potassium dating)

Question 21

Plate tetonic theory

Answer 21

Theory that earths crust is composed of large plates that have been moving slowly through continential drift around 3.4 billion years ago

Question 22

______ causes tectonic plates to collide, separate or slide past eachother

Answer 22

Continential

Question 23

Interactions between different plates/ continential drift cause:

Answer 23

Mountains, islands, earthquakes

Question 24

Tectonic boundaries are sites of…

Answer 24

Volcanoes, earthquakes

Question 25

What are the three consequences during than phanerozoic era

Answer 25

1.) Formation of pangea reduced shallow water habitats , colder and drier climate inland, deepining of ocean basins 2.) influenced biodiversity through mass extinction, change in climate, speciation 3.) distribution of fossils show evidence of geological movement

Question 26

One way extinction generally occurs

Answer 26

When a species can not adapt properly or respond to changes in the environment

Question 27

What are mass extinctions a result of

Answer 27

Disruptive global environmental changes

Question 28

Most fossil records show that most species are extinct. True or false

Answer 28

True

Question 29

Permian mass extinction

Answer 29

Most severe extinction event that happened between paleozoic and mesozoic era, hypothesied cause was due to volcanic activity, little fossil records

Question 30

Cretaceous mass exctinction

Answer 30

Separates mesozoic anfrom cenozoic, only 20% of families went extinct , hypothesized cause was through a meteorite impact

Question 31

What is the 6th extinction and what is the cuase of

Answer 31

Holocene extinction is caused by human activity of overpopulation and overconsumption

Question 32

Mass exctinction can lead to _____ radiation

Answer 32

Adaptive

Question 33

What is adaptive radiation

Answer 33

Rapid speciation and diversification of adapted species. Occurs when there is a change in the environment that makes new ecological niches available

Question 34

3 things that adaptive radiation may arise

Answer 34

1) mass extinction 2) evolution of novel characteristics 3) colonization of new regions

Question 35

How can adaptive radiation arise from mass extinction?

Answer 35

Eliminating species makes more resources available and paves the way for adaptive radiation

Question 36

What is evolution of novel characteristics

Answer 36

Adaptive radiation and arise of new species such as photosynthetic prokaryotes, land plants, insects, etc

Question 37

How did life most likely begin

Answer 37

The conditions of early earth caused chemical reactions that gave a arise to molecules of life

Question 38

Stages that started life

Answer 38

1) abiotic synthesis of small organic molecules (inorganic to organic) 2) organic molecules into organic polymers 3) packaging molecules into protocells 4) origin of self-replicating molecules

Question 39

Two possible wats or how organic molecules arised

Answer 39

1) terrestrial origins: organic molecule synthesis driven by energy soruces such as UV light and electric discharges 2) extraterrestrial orgin: formation of organic molecules due to extraterrestrial objects coming to earth

Question 40

Hypothesized causations of abiotic synthesis

Answer 40

The atmosphere rich in methane and ammonia, near volcanic sites, deep sea hydrothermal vents in both reducing and non reducing environments

Question 41

What is the cause of spontaneous polymerization of organic molecules

Answer 41

Wetting and drying cycles of water on hot surfaces may have caused concentration of small organic molecules into polymers. Minerals trigger polymerization

Question 42

Protocell

Answer 42

Fluid like vesicle with a lipid bilayer membrane structure that formed spontaneously

Question 43

Earliest genetic material is hypothesized to be

Answer 43

RNA

Question 44

Wha was the great oxygenation event

Answer 44

Accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere due to prokaryotes. Some prokaryokes evolved to be aerobic and anaerobic