Biology Chapter 17
The Fossil Record
Earth's Early History
Evolutiom of Multicellullar Life
Patterns of Evolution
Earth's Early History
Evolutiom of Multicellullar Life
Patterns of Evolution
Terms
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- extinct
- Term used to indicate species that have disappeared permanently.
- adaptive radiation
- process by which a single species or small group of species evolves into several different forms that live in different ways; rapid growth in the diversity of a group of organisms
- endosymbiotic theory
- a theory that eukaryotic cells formed from a symbiosis among several different prokaryotic organisms
- coevolution
- process by which two species evolve in response to changes in each other
- fossil record
- information about past life, including the structure of organisms, what they ate, what ate them, in what environment they lived, and the order in which they lived; provides evidence about the history of life on Earth and it shows how different groups of organisms have changed over time
- relative dating
- method of determining the age of a fossil by comparing its placement with that of fossils in other layers of rock
- paleontologist
- a scientist who studies fossils
- convergent evolution
- process by which unrelated organisms independantly evolve similarities when adapting to similar evniorments
- era
- one of several subdivisions of the time between the precambrian and the present
- radioactive dating
- technique in which scientist calculate the age of a sample based on the amount of remaining radioactive isotopes it contains
- geologic time scale
- scale used by paleontologists to represent evolutionary time
- macroevolution
- large scale evolutionary patterns and processes that occur over long periods of time
- half-life
- length of time required for half of the radioactive atoms ina sample to decay
- mass extinction
- when many types of organisms go extinct at the same time
- punctuated equilibrium
- pattern of evolution in which long stable periods are interrupted by brief periods of more rapid change
- proteinoid microsphere
- tiny bubble, formed of large organic molecules, that has some characteristics of a cell
- index fossil
- distinctive fossil used to compare the relative ages of fossils
- microfossil
- microscopic fossil
- period
- units of time into which eras are subdivided