Test Check List
Ch. 14: History of Life Test
Do you know…
Fossils
__ Where fossils are found (sedimentary rock)
__ The different types of fossil and how to describe them
__ The steps to forming a fossil
__ How fossils contribute to the theory of evolution (fossil record)
__ What we can tell about an organism’s environment, diet, and how it
moves by looking at the skeleton (teeth, bone structure, compare to
organisms of today, etc)
__ Dating Fossils
__ Relative Dating (Top layer = youngest, Bottom layer = oldest)
__ Radiometric Dating (Looking at the number of original isotope
remaining in the rock)
Geologic Time Scale
__ The four eras and some of the organisms that were present
__ Precambrian (mostly heterotrophic prokaryotes, some
eukaryotes and invertebrates, cynobacteria)
__ Paleozoic (Vertebrates, fish, plants, amphibians, reptiles)
__ Mesozoic (Dinosaurs, first mammals, birds, flowering plants)
__ Cenezoic (Mammals, Humans)
__ The age of the earth (4.6 billion years)
Origins of Life
__ The first cells were probably heterotrophic (consumed organic
Molecules (food) in the environment) prokaryotes
__ Spontaneous Generation
__ Living things come from nonliving things
__ Redi’s Experiment disproved spontaneous generation of large
Organisms (meat and flies)
__ Pastuer’s experiment disproved spontaneous generation of
Microorganisms (broth and microorganisms)
__ Biogenesis
__ Living things come from other living things
__ Supported by Redi and Pastuer’s experiments
__ Primordial Soup Theory of how life originated
__ Primitive earth’s atmosphere (Hydrogen, Methane, Ammonia,
Water Vapor—NOT MUCH OXYGEN)
__ Lightning struck the atmosphere causing amino acids and simple
sugars to form
__ Rain washed the amino acids and sugars into the ocean and
small pools of water
__ As the water in small pools warmed, the amino acids linked
together to form protocells (cell-like structures that can do mitosis
and metabolism)
__ Miller and Urey’s Experiment
__ Recreated earth’s primitive atmosphere (ammonia,
methane, water and hydrogen)
__ Used electricity to simulate lightning
__ Amino acids and simple sugars are formed
__ Endosymboiyant Theory: How cells with mitochondria and chloroplasts
evolved (prokaryotes ingested aerobic bacteria, which became
mitochondria, and cynobacteria, which became chloroplasts)
__ The relationship between photosynthesizing organisms, the ozone and
aerobic organisms.