• Paleozoic

• Life
• Cambrian Explosion - life vs. fossils
• Ordovician radiation, which groups were dominant
• Ordovician and Devonian reef systems
• End-Ordovician and end-Devonian extinction events -causes, evidence
• Origin of fish - Agnatha, Placoderms (origins of jaws)
• Land Plants - two adaptive innovations allow for colonization of land on large scale
• land plant radiation as proximal cause of end-Devonian mass extinction
• Orgin of amphibians, reptiles.
• Tectonics
• Overall scenario is coalescence of Pangea during most of the Paleozoic
• Compare and contrast the Taconic (Queenston Delta), Acadian (Catskill Delta) and Appalachian (Alleghenian) Orogenies
• Antler Orogeny on western margin
• Uplift of ancestral rockies and Umcompaghre Uplift in response to uplift of Ouachita Mtns.

• Mesozoic

• Tectonics
• Eastern margin
• Rifting of Pangea and formation of Newark Supergroup
• 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
• Jurassic sand seas of w. interior
• Nevadan Orogeny
• Sundance Sea - Morrison Fmt.
• Sevier Orogeny - Mowry Sea - Cretaceous Interior Seaway
• Life
• Marine Invertebrates
• Mesozoic Marine Revolution
• Dominant invertebrate groups,
• Marine vertebrates- time of pelagic reptiles
• Terrestrial Systems
• Plants
• Gingkos & Cycads
• Origin of angiosperms (flowering plants) in Cretaceous time
• 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
• mammal-like reptiles
• Dinosaurs
• Importance of end-Triassic extinction in determining dominant terrestrial vertebrates during Mesozoic time
• Evidence of asteroid impact at end of Cretaceous
• Tethys Sea, rudist reefs
• 
  

• Cenozoic
  
  World Tectonics

• Separation of Australia from Antarctica, initiation of climatic deterioration, ABW, Antarctic Current
• Separation of Greenland from both N. Europe and N. America, establishment of NADW
• How are ¹⁸O/¹⁶O ratios used as indicators of climate?
• Western Margin
• Paleogene
• Laramide Orogeny, why unusual
• Front Range, Beartooth, Wind River, Black Hills (mountains)
• Uinta, Green River, Big Horn, Powder River (basins
• Yellostone Hot Spots
• Volanics of the Absaroka Range, preservation of forest successions in lava flows
• Mississippi Embayment Cret-Paleogene sediments kms thick
• Life

• Marine
• adaptive radiation of planktic forams, nannoplankton, whales, pinnipeds (seals, wlaruses), scleractinian corals
• Terrestrial
• Adaptive radiation of mammals - what general features characterize mammals?
• Paleocene - first appearance of primates and rodents
• Eocene most orders of mammals first appear
• Oligocene - radiation of carnivores
• 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
  • Development of the American West -understand the rock types and major structural styles associated with 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)
• Miocene
  • Cascade volcanism
  • uplift of coast ranges
  • uplift of basin and range
  • Columbia River basalts
  • regional uplift of CO Plateau, Rocky mtn. area
• Plio-Pleistocene
  • Snake River Basalts
  • Faulting & Deformation of coast ranges, San Andreas Fault
  • Great Valley becomes terrestrial basin
  • Uplift of present Sierra Nevadea = rain shadow effect, Great Basin becomes desert
  • Rockies & CO Plateau achieve modern elevation, final cutting of Grand Canyon, Ogallala Fmt.
  • Glaciation of the Rockies
  • Mechanism for final uplifts are debated, basin & range associated with subduction of E. Pacific Rise = transform boundary = extension, rocky mountains from isostatic adjustment after Sevier Orogeny

Eastern Margin: Secondary uplift of Appalachians and subsequent erosion to produce appalachian provinces (Allegheny Plateau, Valley and Ridge, Triassic Basins, Blue Ridge and Piedmont and Coastal Plain).

• Pleistocene - drastic and rapid climate fluctuations of glacials and interglacial (icehouse vs. greenhouse earth)
  • 4 glacial advances & retreats of Laurentide ice sheet
  • controls drainage of modern rivers in midcontinent, produced Great Lakes, Finger Lakes and erosion of Rockies & Sierra Nevada
  • Lakes in Basin & Range that have subsequently dried up (Bonneville, Great Salt Lake)
  • Marine record oxygen isotopes from deep sea cores, what is the marine isotopic scale?
  Human evolution
  • New evidence suggests early evolution of hominids more like a bush than a linear branching tree
  • Understand the interplay between global and regional tectonics and climate change, the ecological theory for the origin of Australopithecus and Homo.  How does cooling/drying factor into the two last stages of human evolution?