NEW
Font size
WorksheetsReconstructing Earth's History
Total questions: 21
Worksheet time: 11mins
Roughly how old is the Earth?
A hundred years old
Thousands of years old
Millions of years old
Billions of years old
When certain fossils appear in one rock strata but disappear in the next one, what probably happened?
A mass extinction
The organism moved
The organism evolved very quickly
The environment was no longer prone to creating fossils
Mass extinctions are used to makr the end of one _______ and the beginning of another.
year
rock strata
human era
geologic time span
Which of the following is the shortest unit of time?
eon
era
period
epoch
What ero do we live in?
Cenozoic
Mesozoic
Paleozoic
Precambrian time
Why do we have so much information about the current eon (Phanoerozoic) even though it only represents about 10% of the Earth's lifespan?
Weathering was miuch worse before this eon
There aren't many rocks left from previous eons
The Earth didn't have a crust before Phanoerozoic
Most of the Earth's crust was formed during this epoch
Scientists most agree that the solar system formed in accordance with the ________.
star theory
big bang theory
nebular hypothesis
black hole hypothesis
Because meteorites formed __________, they are good direct evidence to determine the age of the Earth.
after the Earth
before the Earth
at the same time as the Earth
very recently in geologic time
During the formation of the Earth, ________ elements like iron fell to the core and _______ elements rose toward the surface.
light; heavy
heavy; light
radioactive; stable
stable; radioactive
What does the iron Catastrophe refer to?
the iron shotage of the 1940s
the formation of Earth's iron core
the disruption of rock strata by iron ore
the impact of the Canyon Diablo meteorite
The Earth's atmosphere 3.5 billion years ago consisted primarily of______.
oxygen
nitrogen and oxygen
gases relaased from plants
gases released from volcanoes and no oxygen
________ were the first organisms to perform photosynthesis and release oxygen into the atmosphere.
Ferns
Trilobites
Viruses
Cyanobacteria
Life began to diversify at faster rates than ever before at the same time that
oxygen levels reached higher values
oxygen disappeared from the atmosphere
nitrogen peaked in the atmosphere
vocano activity decreased dramatically
What is the Cambrian Explosion?
the rapid evolution of new species that occured roughly 540 million years ago
the huge discovery of fossils at teh Burgess Shale
the formation of the Earth's mantle and crust
a vocanic eruption that covered the Earth in ash and ended the reign of the dinosaurs
The worst mass extinction that ever occurred wiped out ______ percent of the Earth's species and is called the ________.
10; Cambrian Explosion
90; Permian Mass Extinction
25: Iron Catastrophe
50; Age of Dinosaurs
After mass extinctions, new species often _________
evolve
die out
do not evolve
face hardship
Which of the following did NOT cause a mass extinction?
Volcanic gases were released causing massive global warming
The largest volcanic eruptions in history caused rapid global warming
A meteorite hit the Earth, causing huge tidal waves across all continents
A large asteroid hit Eartrh, producing a cloud of dust that blocked out the sun
Even today, continents continue to move, causing
the uplift of the Himalayas
the stretching of the Great Rift Valley
the formation of new crust at the Atlantic mid-ocean ridge
All of the above
A(n) _______occurs when ice sheets advance from the poles to the equator, and a(n) ______ occurs when those ice sheets melt and retreat towards the poles.
polar era; non-polar era
icy epoch; inter-icy epoch
glacial period; interglacial period
arctic cycle; inner-arctic cycle
How long ago did modern humans first appear?
20 thousand years
200 thousand years
400 thousand years
3.5 million years
When dinosaurs roamed the Earth, other animals
did not exist
were unable to thrive and became extinct
evolved, such as birds and small mammals
flourished, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs
