Lesson test: Deep time and extinction

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Deep time and extinction

1.[2p]
What does the rock face at Siccar Point require the reader to accept?

A sequence of deposition, tilting, uplift, erosion and reburial, each slow

Correct

A single catastrophic flood that laid down both sets of beds

The answer is: A sequence of deposition, tilting, uplift, erosion and reburial, each slow

That the greywacke and the sandstone formed at the same time

The answer is: A sequence of deposition, tilting, uplift, erosion and reburial, each slow

That sedimentary rock forms much faster than it does today

The answer is: A sequence of deposition, tilting, uplift, erosion and reburial, each slow

2.[2p]
The chalk of southern England is about 500 m thick and accumulated at roughly 0.03 mm a year. How long did that take, in millions of years?

CorrectNot quite: 16.7

3.[3p]
What did Cuvier establish in 1796, and why was the elephant the right animal for it?

That species go extinct, since an elephant is too large to be hiding somewhere unnoticed

Correct

That species transmute, since fossil and living elephants form a series

The answer is: That species go extinct, since an elephant is too large to be hiding somewhere unnoticed

That the earth is older than six thousand years, from the depth of the deposits

The answer is: That species go extinct, since an elephant is too large to be hiding somewhere unnoticed

That mammoths and mastodons are varieties of one species

The answer is: That species go extinct, since an elephant is too large to be hiding somewhere unnoticed

4.[2p]
What is the principle that strata can be identified anywhere by their fossils, in the same order every time?

CorrectNot quite: faunal succession

5.[2p]
Faunal succession by itself establishes that later faunas descended from earlier ones.

True

The answer is: False

False

Correct

6.[3p]
A zircon has lead-206 to uranium-238 in the ratio 0.50, and $λ = 0.1551$ per billion years. How old is it, in billions of years?

CorrectNot quite: 2.61

7.[3p]
What was wrong with Kelvin's calculation of the age of the earth?

Select all that apply

The earth has an internal heat source, radioactivity, discovered in 1896

Correct

A convecting interior would reproduce the observed surface gradient at any age

Correct

The arithmetic contained an error

The answer is: The earth has an internal heat source, radioactivity, discovered in 1896, A convecting interior would reproduce the observed surface gradient at any age

The measured temperature gradient in mines was fabricated

The answer is: The earth has an internal heat source, radioactivity, discovered in 1896, A convecting interior would reproduce the observed surface gradient at any age

8.[3p]
Which of Lamarck's two principles fails, and what killed it?

The inheritance of acquired characters, killed by the separation of germ line from body

Correct

Use and disuse, killed by the fact that exercised organs do not strengthen

The answer is: The inheritance of acquired characters, killed by the separation of germ line from body

The drive towards complexity, killed by radiometric dating

The answer is: The inheritance of acquired characters, killed by the separation of germ line from body

Both principles, killed by Weismann's mice alone

The answer is: The inheritance of acquired characters, killed by the separation of germ line from body

9.[3p]
Put these in the order they were published or established.

Patterson dates the solar system from meteorite lead
Hutton takes his companions to Siccar Point
Smith publishes his geological map of England and Wales
Lamarck publishes Philosophie Zoologique
Kelvin publishes his cooling-earth age
Cuvier reads his paper on living and fossil elephants

Show the answer

a, b, c, d, e, f

1.[2p] What does the rock face at Siccar Point require the reader to accept?

2.[2p] The chalk of southern England is about 500 m thick and accumulated at roughly 0.03 mm a year. How long did that take, in millions of years?

3.[3p] What did Cuvier establish in 1796, and why was the elephant the right animal for it?

4.[2p] What is the principle that strata can be identified anywhere by their fossils, in the same order every time?

5.[2p] Faunal succession by itself establishes that later faunas descended from earlier ones.

6.[3p] A zircon has lead-206 to uranium-238 in the ratio 0.50, and λ=0.1551 per billion years. How old is it, in billions of years?

7.[3p] What was wrong with Kelvin's calculation of the age of the earth?

8.[3p] Which of Lamarck's two principles fails, and what killed it?

9.[3p] Put these in the order they were published or established.

1.[2p]
What does the rock face at Siccar Point require the reader to accept?

2.[2p]
The chalk of southern England is about 500 m thick and accumulated at roughly 0.03 mm a year. How long did that take, in millions of years?

3.[3p]
What did Cuvier establish in 1796, and why was the elephant the right animal for it?

4.[2p]
What is the principle that strata can be identified anywhere by their fossils, in the same order every time?

5.[2p]
Faunal succession by itself establishes that later faunas descended from earlier ones.

6.[3p]
A zircon has lead-206 to uranium-238 in the ratio 0.50, and $λ = 0.1551$ per billion years. How old is it, in billions of years?

7.[3p]
What was wrong with Kelvin's calculation of the age of the earth?

8.[3p]
Which of Lamarck's two principles fails, and what killed it?

9.[3p]
Put these in the order they were published or established.