evolution and the history of life exam 1
Wegener
-"continental drift" - argued Pangea: present day continents were once joined in a supercontinent
Linnaus
-"father of taxonomy" -system naturae (1758) -Linnean herichal system
Nicolas Steno what does his principle tell you?
-17th century, Florence, Italy -created "steno's principles" which is the basic principles of the science of stratigraphy -principle tells us how to order the layers of rocks which contain fossils
Darwin
-1844 had the idea of natural selection in draft
Alfred Russell Wallace (kinda Darwin)
-1858: asked for darwin help to get his idea published (both him and Darwin had the same idea of natural selection) -1858: jointly present their theory -1859: the origin of species
Rontgen
-1895, discovered x-rays
Becuerel
-1896, discovered uranium besides a photo graphic plate exposed
Edwin hubble
-1929 astonomer -discovered the Doppler effect does the same thing to light -blue end= shorter wavelength -red end= longer wavelength
Dutart
-1930-1960 -measures fresh water environments -evidence builds up of Pangea
Stanley Miller & Harlod Urey
-1953 experiment -after 8 days the water turn a deep red color, and is full of amino acids
Fox
-1960, University of Miami -heated up amino acids: 140 C or 70 C is phosphoric acid was present
Snow ball Earth hypothesis
-1964 Brian Harland (Cambridge U) -neoproterozoic glacial on every deposit -600-700 MA
red shift
-ALL light from ALL distant galaxies is shifted to the red end of the spectrum
oldest surviving rocks and mineral grains on earth
-Acasta Greiss, North West Canada----4.031 BA (rocks) - (same place) 4.4 BA (mineral grains)
Christian John Doppler
-Doppler effect: sound wavelengths changes when the object passes you , EX) race car -shorter wavelength= higher pitch -longer wavelength= lower pitch
definite earliest eukaryotic fossil
-Grynania -algal ribbons -2.1 BA
system naturae
-Linnaeus began thinking that species were "fixed" but later realized that species were "children of time" and they changes
earlist possible fossil in the Archaean
-Mendies Graun, South Africa - single celled prokaryote algae -3.3 BA
Harry Hess
-Princeton university -guyots: underwater volcano's, flat topped, sunken volcanos - mid-oceanic ridges -volcans and the center of earthquakes are non random
animal respiration
-a plant absorbs co2 from the atmosphere, an animal eats the plant and then is returned into the atmosphere ** most of the time these systems are balanced
decomposer respiration
-a plant dies and rots then co2 is released back into the atmosphere ** most of the time these systems are balanced
Archbishop james Uster
-added up all the decedents of Adam and Eve -figured it added up to 4004 B.C, so Earth was 6,000 years old
big bang theory
-all matter in the universe started out at the same point in time and space, 13.8 BA
principle of original horizontality
-all strata (bedded rock) are deposited in a nearly horizontal orientation -if strata is dipping then tilting must have taken place, however there are exceptions: wind-blown sand dunes and flanking beds of reefs
Endosymbiotic theory
-bacteria engulfed, but not invested -lived inside hots, gaining protection while the host gains the benefit of respiration
Linnean hierarchal system
-basic unit: species -kingdom -phylum -class -order -family -genus -species
atmospheric oxygen
-beginning early on, UV radiation breaks down water into the atmosphere -by 4.1-3.8 BA photosynthesizers come along - complex life is needs oxygen in the atmosphere
Joe Kirschuink
-cal tech -argued that the earth was fully glaciated for 10 MA, glaciers definitely were within a few degrees from the equtor
Lamarck
-came up with acquired characteristics - this was the first reasonable of organic evolution -however, it was wrong because it did not account for extinction or mechanism
Lord Kelvin (William Thompson)
-created the kelvin unit -discovered the deeper you go into a coal mine the hotter it gets -premise: the earth was molten (wrong) -premise #2: earth has been cooling by conduction and assumed the only source of heat was from origianl making him think the age of the earth was 20-40 MA
stromatolite
-distinct laying of sediment - 2 BA South Africa, Fig tree oldest known
absolute number
-divide the ratio from parent to daughter element by half life to get age estimate
Mikhal Budykn
-early climate models -as glacier's grow albedo provides positive feedback, more glaciers= higher albedo -estimated critical points: earth becomes icebound 30 degrees North and South, problems: there was no escape mechanism (no explanation for the melting)
chert
-farms through hardening of fine grained silica gel -can preserve the shape of individual cells -347 BA Western australia Warrawnna, filamenting fossils in first chert
one a hot proteinoid cools it...
-forms into microspheres: 1. film-like wall 2. swell and shrink with water pressure 3. can "bud"/ divide 4.can aggregate into filaments 5. streaming movement of internal particles
evolution
-genetic change of a population of organisms over time, produced by the effects of natural selection on variation within a population
chlorophyll
-green substance that acts as a catalyst
Paul Huffman
-harvard -cap carbonates: glacial deposits immediately capped by carbonates (were founded world wide even where there are no carbonates)
proteinoid
-heating amino acids so they form chains -found in lava of Hawaiian volcanos
RNA precursors
-hydrogen cyanide -hydrogen sulfate -ultraviolet light
lithosphere
-includes crust and upper most part of the mantle -sold rock -under the mantle is another layer (this is why pangea was able to move) -ridid
asthenosphere
-kind of sold rock -"weak rock" -this is why pangea was able to happen
amino acids
-main building materials -catalyst for chemical reaction
the theory of natural selection
-mathus 1798 1. most features can be inherited 2. within a population, variation in inheritable features Mutation 3. this variation leas to differing roles of survival 4. differential survival leas to a basic shift 5. after enough time parent and daughter can not interbreed
two important gases in the earth's atmosphere in the green house effect analogy
-methane -co2
"MISS"
-microbially induced sedimentary structures 5 BA, Western Austrailia
subduction zone
-new oceanic crust is created at mid-ocean ridges -due to convention it cools and sinks eventually down into the mantle ** only oceanic crusts do this -volcanos are above subsection zones, when it melts through the continental crust it creates a volcano
paleozoic era, mesozic era, cenozoic era
-oldest: --paleozoic era contains (youngest to oldest): ---permian, carboniferous, bevonian, silurian, ordovician, cambrian, precambrian middle: --Mesozic era contians (youngest to oldest): ---cretaceous, jurassic, triassic -youngest: --cenozoic era contians (youngest to oldest): ---Quaterny, neogene, paleogene
respiration
-opposite of chlorophyll -frees energy for the organism's metabolism
Eucaryote cells
-organisms: fungi, animals, plants -cell size: 10-100 Microns -genetic material: DNA is chromosome membrane-- bounded in the nucleus -organelles: membrane bounded organelles EX) chloroplasts, mitochondria ** early cells lacked organells -reproduction: mostly sexual
Johny Joly
-original oceans on earth were fresh water -dividing present day salinity + rate of annual salt disagree into the oceans caused him to believe that the Earth was 99 MA old
earth's layers
-outer: crust -middle: mantle -inner: core
fixing
-plants need sugar to grow to make new cells and tissues
sequestered
-plants that die and are buried, by weather and erosion are returned back to the atmosphere -carbon is buried in the sediments ** most of the time these systems are balanced
rifting
-plate tectonics -continental crust is falling out
"red beds"
-sedimentary rock -grains of silica -cemented with iron oxide (gives it its red color) -require oxygen in the air or else they can't form -2.0 BA they appear in sedimentary record
relative date
-the age in terms of the order of events in earth's history; given as a name of the time interval
absolute dating
-the age in years before present; given as a number
half life
-the amount of time 1/2 of the original amount of an element to change (decay takes place at a fixed rate depending on the element) EX) uranium 238-----(4.5 BA)----- lead 206
principle of superposition
-the oldest beds are at the bottom and higher beds are progressively younger -also gives the relative age of fossils
taxonomy
-the study of the competitions and relationships of formally named groups of organisms
oceanic crust
-thin, 7-10 Km -mafic composition (rich in magnesium and iron) -dense
Cuvier
-thought organisms were created as perfect functional whole organisms BUT with several different periods of: Devine creation and extinction
prokaryotic cells
-through the archaean, they diversify and evolve -organisms: bateria -cell size: very small, 1-10 microns -genetic material: thread of DNA in cytoplasm -organelles: none -reproduction: mostly asexual
units of time
-time-rock unit: chronostragraphic unit, all strata in the world deposited during a particular, Erathem, system, series, or stage -time unit: geochronogic unit: interval during which a time-rock unit is formed, eras, period, epoch, and age -boundary stratotype: boundary between two systems, series, or stages formally defined at a single locality
when did chemical sinks run out?
-uraninite and pyrite disappear from sediments by 2.3 BA -banded iron formations: deep marine deposits, common during Archaean, stop/disappear 1.9 BA (too much oxygen in deep oceans) -exhausted 2.3 BA
chemical sinks
-uranium rich & pyrite (iron rich)-- both oxidize very quickly in the modern environment -however, it used to be common in river and beach, sand and gravel---they react with oxygen, they "soak up" all the new oxygen being produced
radiation
-uranium undergoes "decay", giving off heat and subatomic particles (radiatimes)
escape mechanism for Snow Ball earth
-volcanos emit co2 1. insanely high levels of co2 2. reverse albedo and extreme greenhouse 3. evaporation: water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas 4. temps sore in a few hundred years; -40 C to 50 C 5. intense hydrological cycle
elastic determination
-when oceanic crust and continental crust meet the oceanic crust goes under creating trenches -with the contact, friction causes them to lock up EX) wood breaking- pressure builds up and suddenly lets go causing a big release of energy i.e. an earthquake
precambrian
-world formed 4.54 BA -common fossil record 541 MA - January 1st- mid November: precambrian - November 19th- December 13th: Paleozoic -December 13th- December 27th: Mesozoic -December 27th- December 31st: Cenozoic - 7 hours: humans
the green house effect analogy
1. direct sunlight passes though the glass 2. sunlight strikes surfaces 3. reflect 4. much of it scatters as longer wavelength infra red light 5. infrared wavelength light can pass though glass as easily as sunlight 6. much of it is trapped inside and converted into heat ** exactly the same principle applies to the earth
mid-oceanic ridges
1. enormous: huge range of temperature 2. anoxic: compounds to readily dissolve in warm water 4. phosphorus: organic phosphorus compounds 5. metal: nickel and zinc 6. clays: substrate for assembly for organic molecules 7. chemautatrynyns: using chemical reactions as source for metabolizing energy
ingredients to life
1. proteins: strings of simple organic molecules 2. Nucleic acids: DNA/RNA 3. organic phosphorous compounds: used to transform light or chemical fuel into energy 4. container: Cell membrane (provides an isolated chemical system)
albedo
the percent of sunlight reflected from earth's surface (does not heat)
life
to be alive you have to: self-organize, self-regulate, self-replicate
species
a group of individuals which interbreed or have the potential to in nature, and don't interbreed with other such groups
Continental crust
- thick, 70 Km -felsic composition (feldspar) less dense than oceanic crust
12C and 13C
- two stable isotopes of carbon in the atmosphere -photosynthetic organism's prefer 12C -this ratio tell us about the state of the carbon cycle
