A Brief History of Life on Earth
 Early Earth
-Major events and trends in Earth’s
surface environment during the first
4.0 b.y.:
Ocean forms, 4.4 b.y.
Oldest bacteria, 3.8 b.y.
Blue-green algae, 3.0 b.y.
Iron formations, 2.2 b.y.
Oxygen buildup, 2.0 b.y.
Eukaryotes, 2.0 b.y.
Abundant multicelled fossils, 0.6 b.y.
-Planetesimals gathered into larger
clusters to make planets; leftover
material formed asteroids and
comets.
 How Fossils formed
-Mineralization - bones and other
hard parts are replaced by minerals
carried in solution by groundwater.
 Evolution
-To explain his observations, Darwin
hypothesized that species can adapt
to new conditions through natural
selection.
 Fossil record Precambrian
-Microbial evidence
 Fossil Record Late Proterozoic
-appearance of arthropods
-bacteria and green algae (ancestors
of plants) were common during this
time.
 Fossil Record Cambrian
-appearance of organisms that had
hard external skeletons
 Fossil Record Ordovician
-adaptation of marine invertebrates
to different conditions.
 Fossil Record
-Golden age of cephalopods and
brachiopods (a clam like shellfish)
 Fossil Record Devonian
-Golden age of Fishes
-land plants became common such
as ferns and club mosses
 Fossil Record Late Devonian
-first seed plants
-naked seed plants developed
 Fossil Record Carboniferous
-age of amphibians
-first winged reptiles and first winged
insects
-widespread forests and swamps
 Fossil Record Pennsylvanian
-peat swamps common, with scale
trees, seed ferns, scouring rushes,
and large dragonflies
 Fossil Record Permian
-Amphibians decline; reptiles and
insects increase; first mammal-like
reptiles appear. Nonseed plants
decline.
 Fossil Record Triassic
-first mammals and dinosaurs
 Fossil Record Jurassic
-age of dinosaurs
 Fossil Record Jurassic and
cretaceous
-age of dinosaurs
-birds appear
 Fossil Record Cretaceous
-Plesiosaurus infested the beaches
 Fossil Record Cretaceous and
Tertiary
-first flowering plants appear
 Fossil Record Cretaceous and
Tertiary Boundary
-earth was hit by meteorite and the
dinosaurs died
 Fossil Record Tertiary: Paleocene
-age of mammals, grassland spread
 Fossil Record Tertiary: Eocene
 Fossil Record Tertiary: Oligocene
-horses, antelopes, cats, creodonts
 Fossil Record Tertiary: Miocene
-horses, antelopes, rhinoceri,
elephants and other mammals.
 Fossil Record Quaternary:
Pleistocene
-deer and elephant family
-horses, cats, elephants, bison, dire
wolves
-mammals successfully colonized all
environments
-Western Nebraska when first
humans were appearing
 Fossil Record Quaternary
-Hominids diverged from an early
ape-like family.
 Fossil Record Quaternary: Holocene
-Homo sapiens sapiens
Fossils Geologic Time  URANIUM LEAD METHOD is used
to date rocks older than 10 million
 Earth formed along with the solar
years
system 4.6 billion years ago
 RUBIDIUM-STRONTIUM METHOD
 Geologic time scale is the summary
can also be used to date older rocks
of the major events in earth’s history
because of its long half life
-EON largest segment of geologic
 POTASSIUM-ARGON METHOD can
time
date older rocks but can also date as
-ERA
young as 50,000 years
-PERIOD
 EONS
EPOCH smallest segment of
-Precambrian: earliest span of time
geologic time
-Phanerozoic: everything since Eras,
 2 kinds of ages
Periods, Epochs.
-RELATIVE know order of events
 ERAS
but not dates
-PALEOZOIC
-ABSOLUTE know dates
-MESOZOIC
 Law of Superposition
-CENOZOIC
-in undisturbed sedimentary rocks
 PERIODS
the oldest rock layers are at the
-CAMBRIAN
bottom and the youngest are at the
-ORDOVICIAN
top
-SILURIAN
 Law of Included Fragments
-DEVONIAN
-if fragments of one type of rock are
-CARBONIFEROUS
found in another rock layer the rock
-MISSIPPIAN
fragments must be older than the
-PENNSYLVANIAN
rock layer in which they are found
-PERMIAN
 Faulted and Folded layers
-TRIASSIC
-layers of rock that have been
-JURASSIC
faulted or folded must have been
-CRETACEOUS
faulted or folded must have been
-PALEOGENE
present before the actions of faulting
-NEOGENE
or folding took place
-QUATERNARY
 Rock Correlation  EPOCHS
-matching of rock layers that can be
-PALEOCENE
seen at the earth’s surface, over a
-EOCENE
large area
-OLIGOCENE
-an OUTCROP is exposed rock
-MIOCENE
layers at the earth’s surface
-PLIOCENE
-KEY BED is a thin, widespread
-PLEISTOCENE
layer, usually of volcanic ash, that
-HOLOCENE
can be used to correlate an exact
 The Earth through time
point of time
 Proterozoic
 Radioactive dating
-no life possible on Earth
-RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES are
-simple, single-celled forms
atoms of elements that give off
of life appeared 3.8 by
radiation from their nuclei
-cyanobacteria begins
-RADIOACTIVE DECAY is the
producing free oxygen
process by which radioactive isotope
-land masses gather to make
changes into a new stable element
up a continent called
 RADIOCARBON DATING uses the RODINIA
radioactive isotope carbon-14 found  Cambrian
in all living things. -explosion of life
 -dominant animals: marine
inverterbrates
-
 Evidence
-evidence of common ancestry among
species comes from many sources
-genetic change in a population of
organisms overtime
 Evidence of Evolution
-4 types of evidence that scientists have
gathered in support of evolution:
*Fossils
*comparative anatomy and structures
*embryology
*biochemistry (proteins and DNA)
 Fossil Evidence
-Earth is 4.6 by
-Fossils in older layers are more
primitive than those in the upper layers
-extinct fossils resemble modern
animals
-shows common ancestry
-Fossil is preserved remains or traces of
an organism that is no longer living
Usually found in sedimentary rocks
Types of Fossils
-permineralization- minerals carried by
water are deposited around a hard
structure
-natural cast-when flowing water
removes all of the original tissue,
leaving an impression
-amber preserved- organisms that
become trapped in tree resin (fossilized
insect)
Impressions- imprints left in a rock
Preserved remains- organisms becomes
encased in material such as ice, tar, ash