Name _______________________________________________
Biology: The History of Life
Period _____
Study Guide – History of Life
Chapter 19.1 The Fossil Record
Vocabulary – extinct, paleontologist, relative dating, index fossil, radiometric dating, half-life, geologic time scale
Fossils and Ancient Life
1. Fossils usually provide paleontologists with information about
Dating Earth’s History
1. Various fossils are found in rock layers A (top), B (middle) and C (bottom). What can you infer about
the relationship between these fossils?
2. In relative dating, the age of a fossil is determined by its
3. Be able to identify youngest and oldest fossils in the diagram above using relative dating.
4. Be capable of identifying which rock layers are the same age.
Geologic Time Scale
5. When life first appeared, Earth’s atmosphere lacked
6. What type of evidence do scientists have to re-create Earth’s history?
Life on a Changing Planet
7. The geologic time scale is divided into eras based upon
8. Which of the following events occurred first in Earth’s history?
9. Paleontologists try to understand the structure, environment and way of life of extinct organisms by
10. According to scientific data collected, the Earth formed approximately______ billion years ago.
11. In what type of rock layers are fossils usually found?
12. What dating technique uses C14 to determine the specific age of a fossil?
13. In the graph above, determine the half-life of the radioactive isotope potassium-40 used to date fossils?
14. In the graph above, determine what fraction of potassium-40 remains after 3 half-lives.
15. Stanley Miller
16. The endosymbiotic theory proposes that __________________ evolved through a symbiotic relationship
between ancient prokaryotes.
17. Which piece of evidence supports Lynn Margulis’ hypothesis for the evolution of eukaryotes
18. The fossil record generally suggests that life has become more
19. The following are reasons why the fossil record is incomplete EXCEPT
20. The picture to the right was taken from the cartoon called the Flintstones. What’s wrong with this picture?
21. Approximately how many millions of years ago did dinosaurs go extinct and mammals began to take over
the earth in the modern era?
22. The end product (brown goo) of Stanley Miller (and Harold Urey’s) experiment contained ____ suggesting
that life on Earth could have begun on Earth.
23. What is the relationship between ancient cyanobacteria and modern chloroplasts?
24. The significance of sexual reproduction and multi-cellularity in eukaryotes is that both lead to