Geologic Time Guide 5
This guide introduces the use of fossil evidence to study long-extinct life.
Video Overview
Watch this introduction video. You can select “cc” to see the text.
Geologic Time Guide Contents
Complete all four of these sections before taking the quiz and submitting your two journal pages.
Guide 5 Geologic Time Objectives
This guide’s quiz has four questions; one matching each objective.
Eons & Eras
Describe how researchers study early earth, including stratigraphy and geochronology; provide the approximate time span, geologic changes, and representative organisms of the Precambrian Supereon; and provide the approximate time span, geologic changes, and representative organisms of the Phanerozoic Eon, including the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Eras.
Tentative & Durable
Explain how scientific knowledge can be both tentative and durable, providing examples of knowledge that exemplifies both of these characteristics; provide examples of large reptiles that used to be classified as dinosaurs and now are taxonomically classified in different groups; and tell the dinosaur story including evolutionary origins, structural features, major taxonomic groups, new avenues of research, and theories for their extinction.
Fossils
Describe how a fossil forms; explain the types of information that can be determined from fossil evidence; and identify the common bones shared by vertebrates, including the significance of homologous structures in determining species relatedness.
Speciation
Compare and contrast forms of speciation, including examples and the role of genetic analysis in tracking speciation; explain what a living fossil indicates and how the rate of change can vary in different species over time; and distinguish between data, information, knowledge and wisdom and provide examples of each.
Geologic Time Product Page
Look ahead to the products (quiz & journal pages) you will be making after completing this guide’s four activity pages.
Geologic Time Resource Page
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