Term
| What are the three “raw materials” of Conservation Plaeobiology? |
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Definition
o Skeletal remains
o Museum Collections
o Early Observations |
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Term
| Define: Conservation paleobiology |
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Definition
| A combination of Historical ecology and Paleobiology. |
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Term
| • What are the 5 techniques used in Conservation Paleobiology? |
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Definition
o Live/Dead comparisons
o Geochronology
o Schlerochronology (chemical variation an hard tissue accretion; i.e. isotope changes)
o Geochemistry
o Hard Part Damage |
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Term
| • Colorado River Allocations |
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Definition
o 75% Agriculture, 25% cities
• Upper Basin States: 7.5 maf
• Lower Basin States: 4.4 maf
• California: 4.4 maf
• Arizona: 2.8 maf
• Nevada 0.3 maf
• Mexico: 1.5 maf
• Nature: 0 |
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Term
| • Three examples of the ecological impacts of damning the Colorado River? |
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Definition
o Decreased productivity: i.e. Mollusks density.
o Altered composition: the composition change of Ootoliths in fish.
o Changes in trophic structure: Elevated marine mammal mortality. |
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Term
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Definition
| o A sandy or shelly beach ridge, often running parallel to each other and common in river deltas. |
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Term
| • What are some of the uses of microfossils? |
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Definition
o They are marine, terrestrial, and lacustrine
o Small size makes them recoverable form drill holes
o Small size allows for larger number per sample
o Many groups are environmentally sensitive
o Some useful in determining the age of rocks
o Useful in documenting evolution
o Thermal maturity of sedimentary rocks |
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Term
| • What to know about the Domain Eukarya and some example of microfossils form it. |
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Definition
o Domain Eukarya
• Kingdom Protista (single celled) i.e. diatoms, foraminifera, and radiolarians
• Kingdom Animalia
• Phylum Arthropoda: i.e. ostracodes
• Phylum Chordata: i.e. Conodonts
• Kingdom Plantae
• Pollen and spores |
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Term
| • Define: Planktic (planktonic) |
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Definition
| o Life forms floating in, but not on top of, the water. i.e. Zooplankton & Phytoplankton |
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Term
| • Define: Nektic (nektonic) |
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Definition
| o Actively swims through the water |
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Term
| • Define: Benthic (benthonic) |
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Definition
| o Living on or in the bottom |
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Term
| • Describe a Coccolithophore? |
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Definition
o A nanoplankton with a spherical body form of overlapping sing crystal plates (kind of like a soccer ball).
o It begins life planktonic and transitions to nektonic.
o They have low mg-calcite ratio and an easily fossilized.
o Maximum diversity in tropical oceans
o Many went extinct at the K/P. Only 15 species survived. ☹
o They make up a large portion of carbonate rock formations. I.e. cliff of Dover. |
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Term
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Definition
o Have been alive since the Jurassic.
o They have part of a skeleton called a “frustule” with 2 valves composed of porous SiO2
o There are two body type shapes
• Centric
• Pennate
o Live in fresh and marine water as well as ice and soils
o Used because each species needs specific temperatures, turbidity, depth conditions and pH levels.
o They are in things like toothpaste, pain and pool filters. |
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Term
| • Describe Foraminifera (forams). What the four body types? |
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Definition
o Phylum Sarcodina
o Have been around since the Proterozoic
o Four different body types
• Texturlarids: Sio2 Grains
• Fusulinids: Calcites Shell and football or spindle shaped. Extinct since perminan
• Rotalids: calcareous Clear and glassy looking
• Miliolids: calcareous, like porcelain.
o Used to reconstruct past water temperatures
o Oxygen isotopes for glacial coverage etc. |
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Term
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Definition
o Lived form Cambrian to present
o Usually 0.1 to 0.01 mm in size
o Body is composed of and outer and inner capsule held together by radiating spokes.
o Porous Skelton made of SiO2
o Planktonic, carnivores, use zooxanthellae. Photsynthezing predators.
o Used because of wide distribution and rapid evolution and extinctions of species, Great for geologic dating. |
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Term
| • Define/describe the Biological Pump: |
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Definition
| o A carbon-sink the moves large amount of carbon to the deep sea floor for long-term storage. Carbon is incorporated into the tissue and skeletons of microfossils like, forams, cocoliths, diatoms, and radiolarians, which die and sink to the bottom of the sea floor. As this sediment lithifies it becomes rocks and the carbon is sequestered. |
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Term
| • T or F: Rising sea acidity will threaten phytoplankton and zooplankton decreasing the efficiency of the Biological Pump? |
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Definition
| o Answer: True as shit yo! |
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Term
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Definition
| o From nonvascular plants (i.e. mosses) and seedless vascular plants (ferns) |
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Term
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Definition
o Seed plants (angiosperms and gymnosperms)
• Gymnosperms (Devonian to recent)
• Angiosperms: (Cretaceous to recent) |
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Term
| • Descrive/Define Conodonts |
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Definition
o Phylum Chordata, Subclass Vertebrata
• Condonta means “cone teeth”
• 0.1 to 1mm in length teeth of and extinct vertebrate made of CaHPO4
• Lived from Cambrian to Triassic
• They change color with increasing temperature and are used in oil exploration. |
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