Science - Chapter S Study Guide
In order toprepare for the upcoming Science test, in addition to know the chapter
vocabulary, it will be helpful to prepare questions for the following statements.
1. Because a shark has a skeleton made of a soft, firm material that is also
found in human ears, the part of the shark that is most likely to become a
fossil is the teeth.
2. Pangea was an ancient, giant continent.
3. Most fossils are formed in sedimentary rock.
4. The oldest of the following layers is Layer D because it is on the bottom.
6. Because fossils from ginkgo leaves look almost exactly like leaves from living
ginkgo trees, we can infer that ginkgo trees have not changed much over the
past 30 million years.
6. Of the following examples of fossils, D is an example of a mold fossil.
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7. Elephants and mammoths have an ancestor with no tusks in common.
S. If a fossil fish is found in a desert, it is evidence that the land where the fossil
was found was once under water.
9. It is true that some kinds of living things have not changed in millions of
years.
10. Trapping in amber is a fossil method that can preserve a whole animal.
11. If a bird leaves a footprint in the mud and the mud hardens into stone, this
leaves a trace fossil.
12. The best description of an index fossil is that it lived in many places for only
a short time.
13. We have learned that organisms evolve to survive in their environments.
When the environment changes, the organisms that evolve quickly are the ones
that survive. Sharks appeared more than 400 million years ago and still exist.
Dinosaurs appeared 260 million years ago and became extinct about 65 million
years ago. A possible reason that sharks have not become extinct is that sharks
liv~ in the ocean and the ocean environment has not changed much. A possible
~
reason that dinosaurs have become extinct is that dinosaurs lived on land and
their environment must have changed quickly, not giving them time to evolve.
14. Look at the following diagrams. If a scientist were looking for a good index
fossil to figure out the ages of rock layers, helshe would choose the brachiopod
because it appears in all locations at only one layer in each location. Helshe
would not choose the gastropod because appears in layers of many different
ages. They would not choose the pelecypod because it appears in only one
location. The fern would not be a good choice because it only appears in one
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15. If a rock layer is 25 million years old, you can infer that the age of the layer
above it is less than 25 million years old and the layer below it is older than 25
million years old.
16. If a paleontologist finds a fossil of an unknown insect, helshe can compare it
to insects that are alive today. Helshe can classify it with the modern insect
that it is most like.