Overall scenario is higher sea level, sequences of epeiric sea deposition on the cratons. Coalescence of Pangea during most of Paleozoic time.
Compare and contrast the Taconic (Queenston Delta), Acadian (Catskill
Delta) and Appalachian/Alleghenian Orogenies and their signatures in the Appalachian Foreland Basin - know the rock types and structural features associated with the appalachian basin, including the valley and ridge province
Antler Orogeny on western margin
Transcontinental arch and intracratonic basins (Michigan Basin, Illinois Basin)
Cyclothem deposition
Uplift of ancestral rockies and Umcompaghre Uplift in response to uplift
of Ouachita Mtns.
Life
Tommotian Fauna
Cambrian Explosion - interpretations -life vs. fossils
Burgess Shale - implications for role of contingency in evolution
Ordovician radiation (GOBE), role of tectonics
Three global evolutionary faunas-which organisms comprise the Cambrian and Paleozoic faunas?
Siluro-Devonian reef systems
Origin of fish - Agnatha, Ostracoderms, Placoderms (origins of jaws), chondrichthyes, osteichthyes, lobe-fin fish, origin of tetrapods
Land Plants - two adaptive innovations allow for colonization of land
on large scale - land plant radiation as proximal cause of end-Devonian mass extinction
Compare and contrast causes and consequences of end-Ordovician, end-Devonian and end-Permian mass extinctions
Mesozoic
Tectonics
Overall scenario is opening up of Pangea; maximum greenhouse climate by Cretaceous, with highest sea levels in earth history.
Eastern margin
Rifting of Pangea and formation of Newark Supergroup (red beds, alluvial deposits)
Salt in Gulf of Mexico
Continued deposition along passive margin during Mesozoic, changeover from carbonate deposition - siliciclastic deposition along northern portion of eastern margin during L. Cretaceous time
Western margin - know the style of mtn building and geologic terranes associated with each tectonic event
Accretion of Sonomia and Golconda Arc during Sonoma Orogeny
Importance in adaptive radiations in planktic floras and faunas
Vertebrates
Radiation of bony fish (flexible jaw, swim bladder)
Radiation of marine reptiles
Terrestrial Systems
Plants
Radiation of gymnsosperms especially cycads, gingkos, conifers and ferns
Radiation of angiosperms (flowering plants) in mid-Cretaceous, co-evolutionary adaptive radiation of insects and flowering plants. Importance of double fertilization.
Vertebrates
Amniotic egg as space ship
Radiation of reptiles in the face of coalescence of Pangea and increasing aridity
3 reptile groups in place by end of Paleozoic time (anapsid, diapsid, synapsid)
Diapsid take over in L. Triassic time
Ornithischian vs. Saurischian dinosaurs, sauropod vs. theropod saurischians
Evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs
Mammals from mammal-like (synapsid) reptiles in Triassic time, remain small, nocturnal and/or cryptic for rest of Mesozoic.
Importance of end-Triassic extinction in determining dominant terrestrial vertebrates during Mesozoic time.
Cenozoic
K/T Mass extinction - evidence for asteroid impact (Ir, shocked quartz)
Paleogene
Tectonics
World Picture
Separation of Australia from Antarctica, initiation of climatic deterioration, Antarctic Circumpolar Current
Separation of Greenland from both N. Europe and N. America, establishment of NADW - oceanic conveyor belt
How are leaf margins used as indicators of climate?
Western Margin
Laramide Orogeny, how unusual
Front Range, Beartooth, Wind River, Black Hills (basement uplifts - mountains)
Uinta, Green River, Big Horn, Powder River (basins)
Yellostone Hot Spots
Volanics of the Absaroka Range, preservation of forest successions in lava flows
Radiation of modern reef building corals, planktic forams, whales and marine
Co-evolution of grasslands and grazers
Adaptive radiation of mammals
Important features shared by mammals (jaws, teeth, hearing, fur, endothermic, mammary glands, tribosphenic molar)
Rapid adaptive radiation of mammal orders
Three groups of extant mammals, all possess the tribosphenic molar
Three great adaptive radiations. Who were the players on Australia, World Continent, S. America?
GABI - exchange equal at family level and for primary genera, however asymmetrical pattern for secondary genera. What is the pattern? What are the hypotheses to explain it?
Neogene
Continued fragmentation of continents and onset of dramatic climate instability
Understand how O16/O18 ratios in foram skeletons reflect warm (interglacial) and cold (glacial) intervals and serv as the basis for the marine isotopic scale
Tectonics
Development of the American West -understand the rock types, major structural styles and forces that produced the the Geologic Provinces of the western interior and west coast: Rocky mtns, CO Plateau, Basin & Range (& Great Basin), Columbia and Snake River Plateaus, Cascade Range, Sierrra Nevada, Great Valley, Coast Ranges (inc. transverse ranges)
Onset of transform faulting (San Andreas fault system)
Eastern Margin: Secondary uplift of Appalachians and subsequent erosion to produce appalachian provinces (Allegheny Plateau, Valley and Ridge, Triassic Basins, Piedmont and Coastal Plain).
Life
Radiation of grasses, compositae, song birds, rats, mice and snakes
Human evolution
Understand the interplay between global and regional tectonics and climate change and, the ecological theory for the origin of Australopithecus and Homo. Why did a larger brain take so long to evolve? What is the evidence that Australopithicenes were semi-obligate tree dwellers? How does cooling/drying factor into the two last stages of human evolution?
