Log-in and go to the webquest site:
USE THIS AS A HOME PAGE FOR ALL LESSONS- http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php
This will open the University of California Museum of Paleontology website. You will see icons for thousands
of pages of content about the history of life on Earth. Click on Understanding Geologic Time.
Use this website to fill in the following information:
1. The Earth has a ___________________________________________________.
2. The Earth is _____________________ of years old and a lot has happened in that time.
a. Earliest Life: _____________________________________years ago
b. Early Land Plants: _____________________________________years ago
c. Largest Mass Extinction: _______________________________years ago
d. Dinosaur Extinction: ___________________________________years ago
e. “Lucy” Early Hominid: _________________________________years ago
3. Putting events in ______________________ is important. List the events in order from the pictures:
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
In the U.S. history timeline, records were kept of the events as they happened; so it was easy to use this
evidence and put them in order.
4. The vertical timeline shows each event in____________________ order, but with an
_______________or absolute date of when it happened we can be more specific.
5. Relative time is recorded in _________________________________. Each of these rock layers
represents a period of time in Earth's history, so the entire _____________________________ of layers
is another _________________________________.
6. All over the world, rock layers are ___________________________ on top of layers that were already
there. As more and more layers are deposited, the older rock layers end up at the bottom of the sequence
and the newer ones toward the top. In geology, this is referred to as the Law of
__________________________________.
7. _____________________________ of the events in Earth's history is found within the rocks.
______________________________ buried within the rock layers are evidence for the events in Earth’s
history.
8. _______________________________ ("three lobes") are so called
because their bodies are divided into _______________ lobes: a
middle lobe and one on either side. They first appeared about
__________________________ years ago.
9. Brachiopods are _________________________ animals that look a bit like
__________________. They are still common in cold waters today, but the
height of their diversity occurred about ________________________ years
ago.
10. The eurypterids were one of the fiercest predators in ancient seas. Some reached
more than two meters (six feet) in length, making them the largest
__________________________ that ever lived. The last ones went
___________________________ about ___________________ years ago.
11. These are ammonites, a chambered
________________________________ not unlike the
living Nautilus. Ammonites went extinct at the same time
as the _____________________________, about
_____________________ years ago.
Label the fossils in the picture below. Circle the organism that is the oldest. Box
the organism that is the youngest.
12. ______________________ gives absolute dates.
So the law of superposition gives us the relative age of the
fossils.
We can tell that the brachiopods are older than ammonites and
younger than trilobites, but how can we determine when they
actually lived?
12. Since the ________________________ composition
has changed through time at a certain _____________,
we can determine how old rocks are by analyzing their
chemistry. This process is called
_____________________________. Using
radiometric dating allows us to find _______________
ages for particular
__________________________________.
13. Which would be the correct age range for the layer we
are interested in? _____________________________
14. This is a very useful vertical timeline called the _______________________________________ Scale.
It represents the entire history of the Earth since its formation, roughly _____________ billion years ago.
The age range of each ____________________________ is determined by radiometric dating.
14. Describe each period:
Pre-Archean refers to the time before the Archean. There is ___________________________________
at that time.
Archean means original or _____________________.
This is a time when the first ____________________
organisms, like _______________________, began
to evolve.
Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSON- http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php
Click on Getting Into the Fossil Record.
Directions: As you navigate through Getting Into the Fossil Record, keep your eyes open for answers
to the following questions. Hint: The questions are in order of appearance.
1. Name five kinds of trace fossils.
2. Find the walnut. How did it become a fossil?
3. What happened to the mammoth?
4. Why are the mouse and the jellyfish being compared?
5. Why is it difficult for an organism living in the rainforest to become a fossil?
6. What are two reasons why many organisms never become part of the fossil
record?
7. What are two ways that geologic processes can destroy a fossil?
8. Why isn't igneous rock a good place to look for fossils?
9. Find the map of Montana. What are two things to keep in mind when you are
looking for a fossil like T. rex? What do the colors and letters represent?
10. You are a paleontologist at a fossil dig site in the Gobi Desert. You find a site
filled with many fossilized leaves, teeth, bones, eggs and even footprints from a
variety of creatures. BUT you find no trace of insects. One possible explanation
is that no insects lived in the Gobi at that time. What is another possible
explanation for the lack of insects?
Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSONhttp://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php
Click on the comic strip “Comic strip: Survival of the sneakiest”
Answer discussion questions:
1. When it comes to crickets, what does fitness mean?
2. Is calling good or bad for a cricket's fitness?
3. Give some examples of selection at work in this cricket story.
4. How does selection favor calling? How does selection favor not calling?
Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSONhttp://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php
Click on The Arthropod Story: Answer the Discussion Questions
1. How do we determine if some living things are successful?
2. In your opinion, are arthropods a success? Why do (or don’t) you think so?
3. What is an arthropod? What are the traits of arthropods that make them unique?
4. Why do all arthropods share unique traits?
5. Why was the Cambrian Period an important time in the history of life?
6. What happened to the lineages that originated during the Cambrian?
7. How have jointed limbs contributed to the evolutionary success of arthropods?
8. How has it helped arthropods to have many pairs of limbs?
9. Why aren't there arthropods as big as whales?
10. What is an evolutionary constraint?
Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSONhttp://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php
Click on Life Has a History
As you navigate through Life Has A History, keep your eyes open for answers to the following questions.
1. Find the information describing the 30 million species of living organisms. Of that 30 million, how
many are NOT animals? [HINT: Subtract the total number of animal species currently known.]
2. Find the three lens views comparing the oceans through time. Name one animal common to today's
ocean whose relatives were also around 470 million years ago.
3. Find the timeline. How many millions of years did dinosaurs exist on Earth before they became extinct?
4. Find and name at least five things other than bones that can be preserved as fossils.
5. Find a picture of Deinonychus and three of its relatives. What feature do the birds all share that
Deinonychus does not?
6. During this tour, you will learn about cladograms. When you reach that point, complete this sentence:
A cladogram is a diagram that shows...
6. Find the bar graph that shows the differences in beak size among three species of Galápagos finches.
Name the species of finch that has a beak that can be longer than 15 mm.
7. Find the page showing three graphs side by side. The graph on the right shows an increase in the finch's
body and bill size. Why did that happen?
8.
What is a quagga and why can't you have one for a pet?
9. What is a nasal passage and how might Lambeosaurus have used his?
Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSONhttp://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php
Click on Stories from the Fossil Record. Complete the chart below:
Evidence Chart
Evidence
What it tells us:
Past Lives
1. growth rings in fossil trees or shells
2. curled up fossil trilobites
3. the contents of fossil nests
4. fossils of many individuals of the same species
together
5. a change in the shape of a feature over time
Geologic Time
1. layers in the rocks
2. index fossils
3. fossil shells on mountain tops
4. identical fossils on widely separated continents
Paleoecology
1. fossil marine animals in the desert
2. shapes of leaf edges
3. tooth marks in fossil shells
4. fossil pollen
Biodiversity
1. fossils of organisms no longer alive today
Growth rings tell us the number of years that
individual lived.
2. features that are shared by more than one
species
3. the extinction of many fossil species at the
same time
4. the extinction of one group of organism, like
corals, on which other organisms depend