Potential Final Questions
For the final, any questions from the
previous exam guides that have not already appeared on an exam
are fair game. This includes the remaining scenarios from the Essay for Exam #2.
The Final will include a last Geologic Time Quiz.
Potential Short Answer Questions
- What is natural selection? What are the
conditions necessary for natural selection to operate?
Illustrate with an example.
- How did the Franciscan Formation and the Great Valley Sequence
of California form?
- Describe (that means more than just naming) four important
consequences of Pleistocene glaciation in North America.
- Describe (that means more than just naming) four lines of
evidence for a global glaciation in the Pleistocene.
- What is the plate setting of Western North America from the
late Paleozoic to the Mesozoic? What is the evidence?
- How did the San Andreas Fault form? What other changes
accompanied the formation of the fault?
- There are three models for where and how life originally
formed on earth. Describe each of the models, and cite at least
one line of evidence that supports each one.
- How are the patterns of life different from
Cambrian to Paleozoic to Mesozoic with respect to size of organisms,
skeletons, ecological complexity, and the dominant organisms?
Potential Essay Questions
1. The Western Cordillera of North America has a terribly
complicated tectonic history throughout the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.
Describe the change in plate configurations in this part of the
world from (1) the Jurassic to (2) the Cretaceous to (3) the Cenozoic. What is the
evidence for each step of the history you are describing?
2. The East Coast of North America (Appalachian region) had a
violent history throughout the Paleozoic. Describe the evolution
of the East Coast from the Cambrian to the Permian. Feel free to
use a chart if that helps your organization. Your answer
must:
- Account for each of the time periods from Cambrian to Permian (not
just the flashy events)
- For each time period, identify what was happening then.
- For each time period, give the evidence that supports that step of the history
3. Although the continents are well spaced around the globe
today, geologists say that in the Late Paleozoic all the world's
continents were assembled into a single supercontinent, Pangaea.
What is the evidence 1) that this continent existed, 2) that it
finished forming in the Late Paleozoic, and 3) that it broke up
again in the Triassic?