GLY1102 Topic 37
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The shortcoming of the volcanic hypothesis is that it fails to demonstrate the volume and type of volcanism could have accounted for the impact evidence and there can be little argument that a giant asteroid collided with Earth at precisely the time of the global extinctions.
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True
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The extinction of a species occurs when the last representative of the species is no longer capable of reproducing and dies, leaving only the fossil legacy of its time on Earth.
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True
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The fossil record reveals that the rate of extinction over a geologic history was not a uniform rate.
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True
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The Kuiper Cloud is a large, spherical cloud of comets surround the solar system.
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False
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Once the flash heating of the atmosphere by the terminal Cretaceous impact cooled, atmospheric temperatures would have risen because of the vast amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere blocking solar radiation from reaching the surface.
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False
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The fossil record reveals that extinctions typically involve all forms of life (invertebrates, vertebrates, plants, etc) at similar rates.
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False
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The Barringer Meteor Crater is a young (50,000 years old) crater located in this state.
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Arizona
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The greatest extinction (in percent of species extinct) in history occurred at the end of this period.
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Permian
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A rough estimate of the average duration of species prior to extinction is ______.
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About 2 million years
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The fossil record reveals that most species extinctions were caused by changes in the natural environment.
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True
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The comet head consists of a solid nucleus surround by a _____ up to 1.5 million miles in diameter.
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Nebulous coma
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______ are \"dusty iceballs\" of rock, frozen water, and organic compounds.
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Comets
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All dinosaurs became extinct at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary.
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True
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Unlike the moon, Earth has a very active weathering process that over time remove the evidence of impacts, or at least make old ones very hard to recognize.
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True
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The most famous of all extinctions occurred at the end of the ____ and marks the boundary between the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.
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Cretaceous
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____ is a rare platinum group metal.
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Iridium
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The Deccan traps of India and Pakistan, southern Brazil, and the western US all show evidence of extensive volcanism at the time of the C/T boundary.
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True
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Microtekites are small, droplet-shaped silica glass cooled form molten material expelled form an impact crater.
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True
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The vast majority of asteroids in our solar system are found in the Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Pluto.
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False
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In 1981, the geophysicist G. Penfield, found a bow-shaped depression near the Yucatan Peninsula town of Chicxulub tat he thought might be the C/T boundary impact crater.
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True
