Dinosaurs (Geology) – Flashcards
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Evolution
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Change over time (patterns of change in orgainisms over time that can be [mostly] explained by the theory of natural selection).
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Natural Selection
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A mechanisms for evolutionary change.
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What are the rules of natural selection?
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1) variation exists among organisms, 2) some of the variation can be inherited from generation to generation, 3) interaction of this variation with the environment results in differential survival.
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What does iguanodon mean (Latin translation)?
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"Iguana tooth"
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What was Baron Georges Cuvier (Baron McCurves) known for?
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Comparative anatomy; used his insight to interpret fossils by comparing their anatomy to living creatures; worked as a French naturalist and zoologist in Paris.
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Who discovered the first mosasaur?
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Dr. Hoffman (Huffinstuff), a surgeon of Maastricht, Holland.
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Who discovered Megalosaurus?
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Minister William Buckland.
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Who was William Buckland?
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The Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford and dean of Christ Church (both in 1824, when he discovered Megalosaurus).
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What was important about Gideon and Mary Ann Mantell?
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Mary Ann found the first teeth of an Iguanodon in 1822, and her husband, Gideon, eventually recognized that they resembled those of an iguana. Gideon eventually also proved that the animal was not built like a mammal (as Sir Richard Owen claimed) and Cuvier supported his claim that the teeth might've belong to a giant herbivore.
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Who was Sir Richard Owen?
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A British anatomist and paleontologies who is remembers for his contributions to the study of fossils, especially that of dinosaurs.
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What did Sir Richard Owen do?
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He recognized that dinosaurs were different from today's reptiles and, in 1842 classified them in a group he called Dinosaurian (terrible lizard).
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What are the two methods for calibrating geological time with rock?
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Relative and "absolute".
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Relative method for aging rocks
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Determining whether one rock is older or younger than another rock, but not the specific age of either rock.
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Absolute Method for aging rocks
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Putting a specific age on a rock; note, only certain types of rock are suited for this-- mostly igneous rocks, which usually don't have fossils.
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What method is usually used to tell time from rocks and fossils?
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A combination of both the relative and absolute methods.
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Approximately how old is the Earth?
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4540 million years
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What is Scientific Inference?
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The process of making observations, proposing hypotheses to explain them, gathering evidence to test them, rejecting some based on evidence, and keeping those that are plausible.
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What was the time analogy used in class?
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20 years to 1 million; if 1 million is a football field, 20 years is only a single blade of grass.
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What are the types of rock?
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Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary.
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Igneous (extrusive) rock
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Formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava, in this case, on the surface.
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Metamorphic Rock
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Rocks arising from the metamorphosis of existing rock; the original rock can be sedimentary, igneous (intrusive usually), or another older metamorphic rock.
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Sedimentary Rock
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Rocks formed by the deposition and subsequent cement action of that material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water.
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What is the Law of Superposition?
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In 1669, Steno observed that he earth is formed of rock layers stacked, oldest on bottom, youngest on top-- lower rock layers are older than higher layers.
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What is uniformitarianism?
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A geological theory that states that changes in the earths crust throughout history have resulted from the actions of uniform, continuous processes.
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What is the way of telling time from rocks?
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Observing a pattern of superposition, resultant from a process of uniformitarianism.
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What is Faunal Succession?
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Documented by Smith during the 1800s, based on the observation that sedimentary rock layers contain fossilized flora and fauna, and that they succeed each other vertically in a specific, reliable order.
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When was Natural selection discovered and by whom?
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1859, Charles Darwin.
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What are the "Absolute" methods for telling time?
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Radioactive decay (rocks are made up of minerals, which are made up of elements), dating can be don by counting the # of "changed" atoms, relative to "unchanged".
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What is half-life?
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The amount of time it tackles for half the parent atoms to transform into daughter atoms.
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What is the basic time scale for the process of life on earth?
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Earliest life (3800 mil years), earliest multicellular (700+ mil years), first skeletonized (550 mil years).
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What is the order of Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Paleozoic, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous?
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Paleozoic-> Mesozoic: Triassic-Jurassic-Cretaceous-> Cenozoic
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What is a dynamic system and what is an example of one?
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A system or process in which motion occurs, or includes active forces, as opposed to static conditions with no motion; the Earth.
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What evidence is there that Earth is a dynamic system?
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Continental drift evidence, saves of continental margins, rock formations that can be matched up across continents, and fossils of Teresa's trial animals that appear on now separate continents.
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Who proposed the theory of continental drift?
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Scientist Alfred Wegener (20th century).
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What was early Triassic climate like? How did it change over time?
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Highly seasonal with very hot, dry summers, and cold, dry winters. It became milder, cooler, wetter, and less seasonal, before becoming just a bit more seasonal again by the end of the Cretaceous period.
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How do the continents "drift"?
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Lava flows up from the mid-Atlantic ridge, pushing the plates on either side of the ridge in opposite directions.
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What should you do before you enter the field (to find fossils)?
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Learn how to identify your dinosaur, read journals, visit museums to study other fossil material, determine where others have found similar fossils in space and time.
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What is Taphonomy?
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The study of processes of fossilization, from death (decay, disarticulation, deposition), to burial (fossilization, deformation, erosion), to discovery. The
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What are the two major fossil types?
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Body fossils (organisms) ex: a snail, a leaf etc. and trace fossils (behavior) ex: a footprint.
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What are bones and teeth made of?
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Calcium phosphate
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What are coprolites?
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Fossilized feces.
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Who was the inspiration for Indiana Jones?
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Roy Chapman Andrews, the explorer for the AMNH in New York City-- began as a floor sweeper, by 1906 became the museum's director. Best remembered for expeditions to the Gobi of Mongolia from 1922-1930. Discovered the first nests of dinosaur eggs, new species of dinosaurs, and the fossils of early mammals that co-existed with dinosaurs.
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Who were E.D Cope and O.C. Marsh?
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Two paleontologists famous for their rivalry, during which each used underhanded methods to try and outdo the other in the field, resorting to bribery, theft, and the destruction of bones.
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Who was Mary Anning?
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The Greatest Fossil finder of her era; one of her specimens provided the data for the first ever scientific paper about the ichthyosaur, her coprolites helped ancient animal diets to be deduced, and she discovered a fossil fish that bridged sharks and rays.
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What is a phylogeny?
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A hierarchy of life, generated by the process of evolution; can use the possession of certain features to locate the position of an individual in the hierarchy, closely related organism share specific features.
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What is a cladogram?
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A nested hierarchical diagram showing relationships among clades.
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What is a clade?
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A group defined by a specific feature(s).
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What is the concept of Parsimony?
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The simplest explanation is preferred over more complex ones.
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What is a homology?
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A character that is most informative about phylogenetic relationships; a feature that is specific to one clade.
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What is an Analogy?
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A character that can be misleading about a relationship; wings are a good example-- just because two different species have wings doesn't mean they are closely related.
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What traits are homologous to Ornithischians?
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"Bird-hipped", predentary bone, toothless cheeks, all vegetarians, palpebral bone, bony tendons.
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What traits are homologous to Saurischians?
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"Lizard-hipped", long neck, s-shaped neck, long hands.
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Features of Titanosaurs:
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Low, sloping forehead; pencil shaped teeth; nostril near top of skull.
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Features of Camarasaurs:
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Break between forehead and snout; spatulate to pencil-shaped teeth; nostril near top of skull.
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Hadrosaurs
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"Duck-bills", sister to Iguanodontids; teeth had a shredding surface.
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Isometry
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As size increases, shapes stays the same; baby is just a small adult replica.
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Allometry
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As size increases, shape changes.
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Skeletal Elements
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Bones, tendons, muscles.
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Joints
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Direction of motion, degrees of motion.
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Posture
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Sprawling= -o- Semi-erect= /O Erect= II
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Cube Example:
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Length: 1-2-3-4 , area: 1-4-9-16, volume: 1-8-27-64; surface area to volume ratio decreases with increasing size.
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Ceratosaurs
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Small to medium sized carnivores; including Coelophysis.
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Ornithomimosaurs
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Toothless jaws, beak-like snout. Carnivorous.
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Dromaeosaurids
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Large, sickle-like hands. Carnivores.
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Prosauropods
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Very abundant varied group.
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Sauropods
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Enormous four-footed dinosaurs with very long necks and tails.
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Hadrosaurs
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Many with elaborate crests; very distinctive teeth.
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Iguanodons
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Large and clumsy; massive hind limbs.
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Ceratopsians
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Horns and frills on skull; tall snouts.
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Pachycephalosaurs
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Thickened skull roofs.
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Stegosaurids
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Double row of alternating plates along back.
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Anklyosaurids
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Club tails; heavily armored.
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Describe dinosaur teeth.
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Have 3 layers, sit in sockets in the jaw (like ours), nut are not of different shapes and are replaced many times in dinosaurs life, not just once.
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Describe dinosaur jaw mobility.
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Low mobility, can only move up and down, not side to side or front to back. Made up for with cranial kinesis.
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cranial kinesis
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Ability of the skull and jaws to flex slightly between the bones that make up the skin and jaw.
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What are the three layers of dinosaur teeth?
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Enamel (near top), dentin (inside),and cementum (near tip)
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Heterodont
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teeth are specialized for different functions;different kinds of teeth in the same mouth. Mammals have these.
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Describe an allosaurus skull.
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Skull massive but narrow, sutures between bones, holes in skull for muscle attachment.
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Describe Prosauropod teeth.
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Petal-shaped, closely packed in skull, not recurved.
