...study fossils in order to uncover facts about the different species and organisms that roamed the Earth up to 3 billion years ago. Using this knowledge, scientists have learned more about the geological processes that continually happen today, as well as climate changes from the past and present, the origination and extinction of species, and the birth of certain deadly diseases. It has helped shape the hundreds of hypotheses and theories about the beginning of the earth. A fossil is defined in Clark Larsen’s book “Our Origins: Discovering Physical Anthropology” as “physical remains of part or all of once living organisms, mostly bones and teeth, that have become mineralized by the replacement of organic with inorganic materials.” In this paper, I will discuss the importance of fossils, how they are found, and their role in the scientific world. Without the study of fossils, the question of how our species originated would still be a mystery. There are a lot of things that can be learned from fossils while under a microscope. One would be that you can identify what the species ate, or by looking at their coprolites (fossilized fecal material). This can help anthropologists and paleontologists learn more about the animal that created it (Cummings & Grand, 2004). Coprolites are rare to find because they decay very quickly, but when they are found, it is most commonly discovered amongst sea organisms. It is a crucial component in determining the diet of a species; it can display...
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...Paleontology has changed throughout the years as technology has continued to advance. Technology in the past was less advanced. Technology has made paleontology easier by adjusting old technologies, and making them into new ones. Future technology will have added adjustments to make paleontology simpler. The digital world has become popular because the adjustments to new technology has made paleontology simpler. Daily tasks in the past used to be done by hand, or with far less technology than what we use now, because technology was less advanced. Paleontologists used limited technology to help with the process of finding dinosaur fossils. They used to use brushes, chisels, and shovels to dig dinosaur bones up. When a bone was found on the surface of the ground, paleontologists brushed, chiseled, and shoveled the dinosaur bones up. Once the bones were dug up, the bones would be drawn into a journal in their exact positions. Once the bones got to the museum, the curators and all the people that helped place the bones, used the journal to place the fossils in the correct spot. The journal was one of the most important technologies during this time, because it being created to be used to keep track of information, was an amazing invention that...
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...Paleontology, the study and digging up if fossils of prehistoric animals, is a career I wish to pursue because I have been interested in dinosaurs since I was three years old, I want to learn more about these fascinating animals, and I want to help the world appreciate these ancient animals. The only challenges I see in getting a job in this career field is traveling expenses and location. This career has been my dream job since I was five after I watched Jurassic Park and learned what Paleontologists did. My main interest in this career is meeting my favorite creatures on Earth. Paleontology is the study and digging up of prehistoric animals. There have been many discoveries dating back to 1822 all the way to even today. Dinosaur fossils...
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...After completing Lab 4 Acceleration Due To Gravity I can conclude that using a direct method (free falling activity) in obtaining acceleration is more precise than compared to the indirect method (pendulum swing activity). Thusly when I compared my results of each experiment, the free falling measurements were not so great, but closer to the earth’s acceleration. For example, my last measurement of the free falling activity was approximately 985.11 cm/s^2, which was very close to the earth’s acceleration. On the other hand my last measurement on the pendulum swing activity my last measurement was 2196.14 cm/s^2, which was very off from the earth’s acceleration. It is possible to assume errors in my calculations may had alter any of my measurements. Also possible errors in the experiment could have also altered my results. I can honestly say it is not that simple to obtain multiple measure close to the earth’s average. This experiment was overall simple to conduct, but obtaining really good results compared to the earth’s average is the challenge. I really enjoyed conducting this experiment using two different methods to obtain acceleration. My favorite activity was the free falling activity, because I actually obtain one very good measure. These experiments were pretty simple once I got the hang of using the equipment. I thought this experiment was quite interesting looking at my results and comparing them to the average. I had no dislikes on these experiments. Overall this...
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...Horseshoe crabs are marine living fossils, probably traced back to 485 million years ago. There are two horseshoe crab species found in Hong Kong. Horseshoe crabs are an ancient marine chelicerates, identified as the Class Merostomata, Order Xiphosura. The animals are identified by the possession of appendages around their ventral mouth and their swimming legs at their distal end. They have closer lineages with trilobites and arachnids such as spiders and scorpions instead of the "real" crabs which are crustaceans. Four extant species of horseshoe crabs are found and have survived over the geological period. They are classified to three genera in two families under the Superfamily Limulacea. They have hardly changed in millions of years. The oldest horseshoe crab fossils are probably traced back to the Cambrian period, which is nearly 485 million years ago. Therefore, the existing horseshoe crab species are treated as living fossils. http://www.hschk.org/article.php?id=20 2. Oriental Blechnum Blechnum orientale is an evergreen fern forming a clump of arching fronds from 20 to 200cm tall, growing from a thick rhizome that rises to a short, erect trun. The plant is sometimes harvested from the wild for local use as a food and a medicine. It is often cultivated as an ornamental. The plant is anthelmintic, antiviral, contraceptive and tonic. It is used in treating urinary complaints, impotence, boils in babies and older children and diarrhoea. It is believed that total...
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...The main point of this article is to show the opinions between Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris. Gould believes that if the Cambrian explosion was rewinded, then the outcome would be different and there would be less extinction. On the other hand, Morris believes that this is not the case. He says that everything happened for a reason and that we humans were meant to be the goal of evolution. The Cambrian explosion was an event over five-hundred years ago that occurred in the time frame of twenty million years. Twenty million years is a short time frame compared to how long eras can go for. The Burgess Shale are fossils from the Cambrian period that are located at the Canadian Rockies. The reasons why the Burgess Shale is so popular...
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...Week One Review Questions Student’s Name GLG 101 Due Date Teacher’s NAme Chapter 1: Critical and Creative Thinking Questions 3 & 5 3. How do you think the principle of uniformitarianism accounts for occasional catastrophic events such as meteorite impacts, huge volcanic eruptions, or great earthquakes? Uniformitarianism is a theory that states that past events are happening today and will happen in the future. What we do today has an effect on the geologic formation and structure and can lead to natural disasters. 5. In what ways do geologic processes affect your daily life? Daily life can be interrupted by flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes and wildfires destroying communities and resources that provide stability. Chapter 2: Critical and Creative Thinking Questions 1 & 3 1. When astronauts brought back rock samples from the Moon, the minerals present were mostly the same as those found on Earth. Can you think of reasons why this might be so? Would you expect minerals on Mars or Venus to be the same, or at least very similar, to those on Earth? Moon and Earth are close neighbors so some of the similarities are to be expected. Mars, Venus and Earth are inner planets and similar because they are small and made up of solid rock like materials. 3. Which of the following materials are minerals, and why (or why not)? Water; beach sand; diamond; wood; vitamin pill; gold nugget; fishbone; emerald. Water is not a mineral because it is a liquid. Beach sand...
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...an anemometer (measures wind speed). * Oceanography - Study of the Earth’s oceans and seas. Some types of oceanography include: marine geology (plate tectonics and study of the ocean floor), physical oceanography (physical attributes of the ocean), meteorologic oceanography (the atmosphere and the ocean interact). * Hydrology - the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water throughout the Earth. Hydrologists are currently focusing on water turbine or hydropower resources. During the winter, resources freeze and in the summer they dry up. Sanitary water supply is scarce. As cities get bigger the water supply lowers. Every year, the U.S. thermoelectric industry uses 3.3 billion gallons of water. * Paleontology – the study of the history of Earth’s life forms through fossil records. There are many different...
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...Criticial Thinking Questions Chapter 3 Question 3: The principle to uniformitarianism is the "past is the key to the present". This essentially means that scientist are essentially able to hypothesize about what happened in the past with the materials and processes available or seen today. One example of this is being able to determine that sandstone most likely derived from sand dunes millions of years ago. As the obvious wind patterns in both the stone and the sand are very similar. Chapter 3 Question 5 Geological processes affect everything here on Earth and most certainly humans and our way of life. Whether we speak of the damages of earthquakes and volcanoes or the environmental effects on oil and water.They can affect our lives in most all things determining where to get our drinking water essential for life or where we should or shouldn't build a home. Geological processes affect the weather, the climate and the overall stability of our planet. Chapter 2 Question 1 The minerals on Mars, the moon, Venus and Earth would all be very similar based on the fact that they were all swirling balls of dust and gas and formed at relatively the same time due to a cosmic collision. Chapter 2 Question 3 As a liquid water is not a mineral because it is not a solid. Beach sand is not a mineral because it is made up of organic material usch as shells and coral. A diamond is a mineral as it fits the definition of a mineral. A vitamin pill is not a mineral as it is made by humans. A...
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...Dinosaurs were found in the Laramie basin in Wyoming together with land plants "remarkably modern in their aspect"; these land plants bespoke a much more recent age than the Age of Reptiles, which, it is assumed, came to its end about 70 million years ago. The plants were referred by paleobotanists to at least the Tertiary epoch, or the Age of Mammals. "The Laramide group has given rise to one of the two most prolonged controversies in the history of American geology." [C.P. Dunbar, Historical Geology (1949), p. 375.] But the paleozoologists persisted in ascribing the plants to the Age of Reptiles, and finally coerced the botanists into accepting their view. In the redstone wall of Supai Canyon in the region of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona were discovered figures of animals cut by some prehistoric man. "The fact that some prehistoric man made a pictograph of a dinosaur on the walls of this canyon upsets completely all of our theories regarding the antiquity of man." [Ibid.] "The fact that the animal is upright and balanced on its tail would seem to indicate that the prehistoric artist must have seen it alive." Dinosaurs were in the vicinity, as is established by footprints discovered not more than one hundred miles from the picture. [S. Hubbard, The Doheny Scientific Expedition to the Hava Supai Canyon, Northern Arizona, 1925 (1927), p. 5. E. George, referring to these drawings in his The Adventures of Mankind...
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...Associate Level Material Geologic Time Worksheet Use the following table to compare ways of evaluating geologic time. Your description, similarities, and differences must each be at least 50 words. |Time Evaluation Method |Description |Advantages of this Method |Disadvantages of this Method | |Relative dating |The ability to figure out past |By looking at the layers of |The disadvantages to this study | | |sequences of events thus telling|sediment stacked on top of each |and the determining how old | | |us the approximate age |other and studying the fossils |these layers of sediment might | | |difference from one formation to|found within these layers gives |be is the fact that we do not | | |another. This was done by |us the ability to formulate the |know how long it took to make | | |looking at the different layers |approximate age of each layer |one layer. We also do not know | | |of sediment formed in a mountain|and how long it took to form |if there was a time period that | | |side which turned into rock. The|each layer. Also we can tell |a layer of sediments was not | | |layers piled upon each other let|that any fractures...
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...Chapter 1 3. Uniformitarianism has scientifically proven that geological processes have been nearly unchanged from the past. Catastrophic events that once impacted the Earth still have the potential to repeat itself due to the observable geological features and geological processes that still act in the same manner. Since natural events that have been proven to repeat themselves, the tendency for ongoing natural disasters will always be a major concern. 5. Geological processes still maintain the ability to affect daily life due to the nature of the Earth’s surface and the natural effects that coincide with each other. Erosion, natural weathering, and tectonics are all processes that could act in a manner to drastically affect daily life. Chapter 2 2. Because igneous rocks are solidified from magma or lava, I believe that when ash is released it is consider igneous. Volcanic ash, by origin, is inconsiderably igneous. The point in which volcanic ash may be considered a sedimentary rock is when the ash has fallen to the floor and undergoes a cementation process. Behaviorally, once volcanic ash is shot into the air, the after effects closely resemble sediments. 3. Water does not qualify to be considered a mineral because it fails to meet the requirement of being a solid. Beach sand is not considered to be a mineral because it contains organic materials. Diamonds are classified as minerals. They contain a crystalline structure and are a solid. Wood is not...
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...Week One - University of Phoenix Material Earth and Earth Materials Worksheet Part 1: Layers of the Earth • Complete the following diagram by identifying and naming Earth’s layers. Layers of the Earth [pic] • Write a 150-word summary or list that describes the basic attributes of the layers you listed in the diagram. The inner core is made of solid metal, mostly iron-nickel alloy. The outer core is made of the same substance, just molten. The outer core is about the same temperature as the surface of the sun, while the inner core is cooler, thus making it solid. Scientists have confirmed this by examining waves and how they pass through the layers. The next layer is the Mesosphere, made of hard dense rock. It lies just beneath the Asthenosphere with is liquid magma. It is a tar like substance that spews out of volcanoes. Above that is the Lithosphere which is weak brittle rock that makes up the crust of the earth. This basically floats on the lithosphere like a marshmallow on hot chocolate. This is how the plates on the earth move around by seismic activity, and how volcanic eruptions happen. The rock on the crust is brittle and easily formed into mountains or broken apart. Part 2: Rocks and Minerals Summary • Complete the following WileyPLUS® GeoDiscoveries®: Chapter 2- Ungraded • Minerals Drag-Drop • Density of Minerals • Silicate Links • Igneous Rocks and Silicates • Virtual Rock Lab Graded •...
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...Animals with hard parts are obviously more likely to be preserved than those that have only soft bodies. Animals may have hard parts, but if they are fragile (perhaps thin), they will not preserve as well as those that have more resistant structure. Some hard parts may have a chemistry that allows then to dissolve easily, reducing their chances of preservation. Some animals have an anatomy that predisposes then to breaking up after death. Vertebrates, for examples, have bony skeletons, but the bones are held together by soft tissue tendons and muscles. Vertebrates often fall apart after death, and their bones may be scattered by water currents, predators, scavengers, etc. Plants fall apart after death, or even during life. Flowers, pollen/spores, leaves, and even branches may be shed during life; stems and trunks may be broken away from roots after death, and the result is that plant parts (even from the same plant) may end up being fossilised in different places. Some creatures molt off their hard parts during life. We have already mentioned leaf fall in deciduous plants. But all arthropods except insects molt off their outer skeletons as they grow (adult insects don't grow). So crustaceans, trilobites, and so on may drop a dozen or more outer skeletons into the fossil record before they finally die. Molting may act as a bias suggesting that a species was MORE abundant than it was in reality. Size Large fossils are easier to see Large shells or bones are stronger, so...
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...Phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibria are really two different modes where evolution can take place. Punctuated equilibria, many different kinds of species can differentiate very quickly resulting evolving to a new environment. Once species are established they vary very little over time. An older theory is phyletic gradualism; this has been actually discarded in biology. This is a steady and slow rate of change in population over time. The differences between the two are the rate of evolution. Phyletic gradualism is very slaw and is constant for species. In punctuated equilibrium the rate is very fast and is related to geologically side of things. In my opinion, the differences lay in the definitions of the species and of course the theories behind punctuated equilibrium and phyletic gradualism. Many expert and researchers have annotated that punctuated equilibrium implies a prediction about patterns of genetic differences among many species. It predicts that many evolutionary changes takes place in a short span of time and is tied to speciation events.” Punctuated equilibrium predicts that the fossil record at any one site is unlikely to record the process of speciation. If a site records that the ancestral species lived there, the new species would probably be evolving somewhere else. The small size of the isolated population which is evolving into a new species reduces the odds that any of its members will be fossilized. The new species will only leave...
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