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1 | |
The loss or death of an entire animal species is referred to as _______________. |
| | A) | distinction |
| | B) | sublime |
| | C) | genome |
| | D) | extinction |
| | E) | genus |
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2 | |
The scientific discovery that entire species of animals can become extinct dates to ______________. |
| | A) | the early Greeks |
| | B) | the 20th Century |
| | C) | the 1780s |
| | D) | 1200 C.E. |
| | E) | construction of Noah's Ark |
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3 | |
The law of superposition holds that ________________. |
| | A) | older fossils are found with younger fossils |
| | B) | in undeformed strata, younger layers of rocks overlie older layers of rocks |
| | C) | animal species come and go |
| | D) | in undeformed strata, older layers of rocks overlie younger layers of rocks |
| | E) | all rocks contain fossils |
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4 | |
Correlating rock strata using a well-defined fossil assemblage is referred to as _______________. |
| | A) | law of superposition |
| | B) | bad judgment |
| | C) | law of faunal succession |
| | D) | law of faunal assemblages |
| | E) | law of cross-cutting relationships |
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5 | |
The law of faunal succession maintains that ___________________. |
| | A) | all species must ultimately become extinct |
| | B) | only the fittest organisms survive |
| | C) | older fossils are more unlike living organisms than are younger fossils |
| | D) | species succeed one another in such a way as to leave no gaps in the fossil rock record |
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6 | |
Fossils are most likely to be preserved in _________________. |
| | A) | volcanic rocks |
| | B) | plutonic rocks |
| | C) | metamorphic rocks |
| | D) | sedimentary rocks |
| | E) | meteorites |
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7 | |
Geoscientists who specialize in the study of fossils are _______________. |
| | A) | hopeless romantics |
| | B) | environmental geologists |
| | C) | geophysicsts |
| | D) | volcanologists |
| | E) | paleontologists |
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8 | |
The earliest single-cell organisms are found in rocks that are __________ billion years old. |
| | A) | 2.5 |
| | B) | 0.001 |
| | C) | 3.85 |
| | D) | 4.5 |
| | E) | less than 1 |
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9 | |
Bacteria capable of photosynthesis appeared on the Earth about ______________. |
| | A) | 3.5 billion years ago |
| | B) | 500 million years ago |
| | C) | in the Pennsylvanian Period |
| | D) | 4.5 billion years ago |
| | E) | sometime after the first fishes |
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10 | |
Evolutionary changes in organisms were greatly aided by the advent of ________ about 1 billion years ago. |
| | A) | the lung |
| | B) | Earth's atmosphere |
| | C) | photosynthesis |
| | D) | sexual reproduction |
| | E) | all of the above |
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11 | |
Based on Figure 15.8, it is clear that the number of families of marine animals has ________________. |
| | A) | decreased since 500 million years ago |
| | B) | plateaued and is unchanging |
| | C) | generally increased since 500 million years ago, but has suffered some downswings in growth |
| | D) | too little information for answering the question |
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12 | |
The term species refers to a group of organisms that have similar life habits, can breed together freely, and share a common pool of genetic material called _____________________. |
| | A) | genome |
| | B) | gene |
| | C) | family |
| | D) | eukaryotic cell |
| | E) | none of the above |
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13 | |
The vast majority of all species (more than 99%) that have lived on the Earth in the past 3.85 billion years are now __________________. |
| | A) | dysfunctional |
| | B) | dormant |
| | C) | in hibernation |
| | D) | active and doing well |
| | E) | extinct |
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14 | |
Extinction of an entire genus or species is _________________. |
| | A) | exceedingly rare |
| | B) | commonplace |
| | C) | mostly the result of human action |
| | D) | a perversion of nature |
| | E) | intimately associated with glaciation |
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15 | |
The difference between background extinction and mass extinction can be summarized in which of the following pair of words? |
| | A) | good / evil |
| | B) | commonplace / exceedingly rare |
| | C) | rare / commonplace |
| | D) | frequent / less frequent |
| | E) | none of the above |
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16 | |
The extinction of most dinosaur species about 65 million years ago opened up ecological niches for ___________________. |
| | A) | amphibians |
| | B) | bacteria |
| | C) | mammals |
| | D) | fish |
| | E) | insects |
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17 | |
From the lowest level (species) to the highest (kingdom), the hierarchy of classification of life forms is _________________________. |
| | A) | species, class, order, family, genus, phylum, kingdom |
| | B) | species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom |
| | C) | species, phylum, family, genus, class, order, kingdom |
| | D) | species, genus, class, family, order, phylum, kingdom |
| | E) | species, genus, phylum, order, class, family, kingdom |
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18 | |
Using the extinction-frequency curve of Figure 15.14, the best-estimate interval between extinction of about 50% of all species is about ________________ years. |
| | A) | 107.5 |
| | B) | 106 |
| | C) | 109 |
| | D) | 105 |
| | E) | cannot be established from this curve |
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19 | |
Through time the area of continental land masses making up the Earth's surface has _______________. |
| | A) | remained the same at about 29 % |
| | B) | remained the same at about 71% |
| | C) | fluctuated from about 17 % to 40 % |
| | D) | remained proportional to the number of species |
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20 | |
Eustatic (i.e., global) sea-level changes are largely the result of __________________. |
| | A) | sea-floor spreading |
| | B) | caldera-forming eruptions |
| | C) | glaciation |
| | D) | meteorite impacts |
| | E) | answers A and C |
| | F) | answers A, B, C, and D |
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21 | |
In comparison to a number of comparably sized but discrete continental land masses, the supercontintent Pangaea probably had ____________________. |
| | A) | a greater number of species |
| | B) | the same number of species |
| | C) | a number of species proportional to its coastline |
| | D) | fewer numbers of species |
| | E) | too little data for determining an answer |
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22 | |
Emplacement of flood basalts, such as the Deccan Trap basalt of 65 million years ago, would have the effect of ____________________. |
| | A) | warming the Earth's atmosphere |
| | B) | cooling the Earth's atmosphere |
| | C) | no impact on Earth's atmosphere |
| | D) | polluting the Earth's atmosphere resulting in extinction of all terrestrial animals |
| | E) | markedly enriching atmospheric oxygen |
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23 | |
Which of the following is not a possible cause of mass extinction? |
| | A) | climate change |
| | B) | meteorite impact |
| | C) | flood-basalt volcanism |
| | D) | increased seafloor spreading rates |
| | E) | epidemic diseases |
| | F) | all of the above are possible contributing factors to mass extinction |
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24 | |
The Permian extinction, sometimes referred to as the "Mother of all extinctions," was probably the result of _____________________. |
| | A) | human predation |
| | B) | emplacement of Siberian Trap basalts |
| | C) | formation of Pangaea |
| | D) | oceanic composition changes |
| | E) | answers A, B, C, and D |
| | F) | answers B, C, and D |
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25 | |
The last 50,000 years have seen the extinction of many large-bodied mammals. One of the probable causes includes _________________________. |
| | A) | eruptions at California's Long Valley caldera |
| | B) | an unprecedented number of catastrophic tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes |
| | C) | human predation |
| | D) | chlorofluorocarbon buildup in the stratosphere |
| | E) | none of the above |
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26 | |
It is thought that human predation in Australia about 50,000 years ago was responsible for the extinction of which group of animals? |
| | A) | dinosaurs |
| | B) | saber-toothed tigers |
| | C) | wild boars |
| | D) | flightless birds |
| | E) | ground sloths |
| | F) | kangaroos |
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