Review sheet #2

Earth and Life through time

Exam 2: Covers 10,11,12,13, lectures, labs (will NOT cover Ch 14).

Version: 25 Feb 2003

Chapter 10 Earliest Paleozoic History

What is an Aulacogen? Give an ancient example? Give a possible modern example.

What is the Sauk Transgression? How old is it? What rocks were deposited?

What is the transcontinental Arch? How do facies reflect the Arch in the Cambrian?

What it the difference in terms of basin formation between a Passive margin, and Forearc basin, and a foreland basin?

What drives subsidence in these three basin types?

What is a comparable modern setting to the Sauk transgressive sea?

The rocks of the Sauk transgression contain ultramature quartz sandstones. a) what are ultramature sandstones and b) how to they get this way?

What drove the Sauk transgression?

What drives long-term sea level changes as seen in the Sauk Transgression? (5 ways).

What drives short term sea level changes as seen in modern sea level changes?

What is the difference between an erosional basin and a depositional basin.

How can you tell if you have a depositional basin or not?

What is a plaeogeographic map?

What is an Isopach map?

What is a structural contour map?

Chapter 11 The Later Ordovician

What is the explosive radiation of the Paleozoic fauna?

What is the Tippecanoe sequence?

What are graptolites?

What are Unconformity bounded sequences on the Craton? What are the primary controls of their deposition?

What is a shield?

In a simple transgression, such as the Tippecanoe, what change of facies would you expect as deposition progressed?

Where was the land exposed in the Late Ordovician in North America?

What is a clastic wedge?

What is the stratigraphy of the clastic wedge of the Taconic orogeny?

What is a suture zone?

What is an ophiolite suite?

What is the local stratigraphic sequence that records the Taconic colision? Which units are important?

What is a good analogy for the Taconic collision zone?

What does thrust loading do for a basin?

At the end of the Ordovician there was a mass extinction. Tropical, shallow water forms were hardest hit. What caused this extinction and why?

L.L. Sloss "discovered" unconformity bounded squences on the craton. The lowest two are the Sauk and the Tippecanoe. Why do cratons get transgressed like this. Does the same thing happen around the world?

What is the nature of the collision between Australian and the Indonesian Arc and correlatives to the east?

How can the collision of the PNG with OZ be compared to the Taconic Collision?

What is flysch? Molasse?

How does basin fill in a flexural foreland basin reflect basin subsidence?

What is the diference in thickness and regional extent of the syn-orogenic and post orogenic fill in a foreland basin?

Craters and Impacts - Doomesday Earth (on reserve in Library)

What is a meteorite? A comet?

Why do we need to keep an eye on the Astroid belt?

What are typical and common types of Meteorites?

How do craters form? What happens on impact?

What are examples of craters on earth?

What is the hazard surrounding Impacts?

What was the Tunguska event - Siberia, USSR- 1908. Did the asteroid actually hit the earth? What damage occurred?

What are Meteorites? What is the difference between comets and asteroids? Where do they originate?

What are examples of young meteorite impact that have been witnessed by humans?

What is the typical structure of a crater?

How did Alverez’s the KT impact event? What is the geological evidence?

How has the military developed systems that could be used to track and destroy asteroids and meteorites?

How could a body be diverted from a certain collision with earth? What do you need to do? Can we just lobe a nuke on an asteroid like they do in the movies?

Chapter 12 The Middle Paleozoic

When did the fish get going?

Were days longer in the Devonian? Why?

How do marine evaporites form? Give typical modern examples.

How does dolomite form?

What is the Michigan basin and what made it so special for the deposition of sedimentary rocks?

What is the salinity of typical seawater?

When seawater gets concentrated, why does carbonate and gypsum get deposited first, despite the fact that halite is more common in dissolved form?

What is the Solubility series?

What are salt diapers?

Where do salt domes form and why?

What role do they play in oil exploration?

What is the Acadian Orogeny?

The Missing Link (on reserve in Library)

What is a Tetrapod? What are typical examples of tetrapods?

What is an example of something that is not a tetrapod?

What is the difference between Rayfin fish and Lobefin fish?

When did Lobefin fish become common? What does that imply about the timing of the “terapod split?”

What is “Icthyostega?” This form has traditionally been assumed to be the “missing link,” but what why do they imply that this is NOT the case?

Did Icthyostega walk on land?

What is the “Drying pond” scenario?

What is the evidence that things were hot and dry in the Devonian?

What is a Coelacanth (“sea-le-canth”), and why is it amazing that these things are still around?

How many fingers did the Acanthostega fossils have (from Greenland). What is the implication of this find?

What is “Hinererperon?”

In this “Swamps first” idea, why did organisms need limbs?

In this hypothesis, what role did swamps play in this important evolutionary change?

Geology of Oil and Iraq

How does oil form?

Why does Iraq have good source rock?

How do source rocks, reservoirs, and traps form?

Give an example of a trap.

On the world scene, how much oil does Iraq have?

Chapter 13 Late Paleozoic History

What caused the Appalachian orogeny?

What was the resulting landmass configuration after the Appalachian Orogeny?

What are Cyclothems? Why do the form?

What are the typical rock sequences and facies represented by cyclothems?

What caused the deposition of red beds?

What is Pangea? When did it form? What amalgamated to form it?

CH 14: not covered on this exam, will be on final.