Hypothesis
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What types of ruminants of fossilize life is there on Mt. Cristo Rey?
Where are the closes relatives that are descendants of past life?
Bring back samples and rock formation to analyze the specimens?
Analyze fossils
Tips to follow when looking for fossils:
1.Discover the relative dates that certain traits arose
2. Assume that the best hypothesis is the one that requires the fewest
number of evolutionary changes (principle of parsimony)
3. Principle of Parsimony- states that preferred hypothesis is the one
that is the simplest.
4.Maximum likelihood and Bayesian analysis for gene sequence data
Climate for
Cretaceous Life
The climate of the Cretaceous is less certain and more
widely disputed. Higher levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere are thought to have caused the world
temperature gradient from north to south to become
almost flat: temperatures were about the same across the
planet. Average temperatures were also higher than today
by about 10°C. In fact, by the middle Cretaceous,
equatorial ocean waters (perhaps as warm as 20 °C in the
deep ocean) may have been too warm for sea life, and
land areas near the equator may have been deserts
despite their proximity to water. The circulation of oxygen
to the deep ocean may also have been disrupted. For this
reason, large volumes of organic matter that was unable
to decompose accumulated, eventually being deposited as
"black shale “.
Fossils of Mt. Christo Rey
By
Augustine Valverde
Time Periods- getting
deeper
Fossil life that existed in Mt. Christo Rey, are dated
to be in the Mesozoic Era. Within that 250-70 mya,
after the Jurassic era, we have the Cretaceous
Era(145.5 Mya to 65.5 Mya) which holds the most
fossil life that can be found at Mt. Christo Rey. In the
Cretaceous Era, there are two time frame sections
to classify life from the mountain such as the
Turonian and the Coniacan eras (93-85 mya). This
is key to understand what life that is fossilize to
date.
This is a fossil site you can find at the mountain
What I found at
the mountain
Fossil life that can be found:
Phylum: Mollusca (Mollusks)
A closer look at fossils at the site.
Exogyra plexa –oyster (100 mya): Class: Bivalvia - Bivalves Pelecypods
Order: Ostreoida
Family: Gryphaeidae
(Texigryphaea, grypheas,
Tiny Gastropods and snail fossils
Plicatula ("Cat's paw" clams) (100 mya)
Class: Bivalvia - Bivalves - Pelecypods
Order: Ostreoida
Family: Plicatulidae
Mixed collection of fossils
A timeline on the Cretaceous era within the Mesozoic Era
Protocardia texana (shell) 100 (Mya)
Class: Bivalvia - Bivalves - Pelecypods
Subclass Heterodonta
(clams, rudists)
Order: Veneroida Family: Cardiidae
Plant life fossil
Why is this important to know?
The Western Interior Seaway, also called
the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea,
and the North American Inland Sea, was a
huge inland sea that split the continent of
North America into two halves during most of
the mid and late Cretaceous Period .
This explains why there was a large amount
of marine fossil life found on the mountain.
Tiny gastropods
and ammonites shell pieces.
Based on my findings at Mt. Christo Rey, The fossil life there had mostly dark
shades of black, indicating that there was a huge lack of oxygen during that
time frame. However , after that time frame, more trees and plants had
developed and created change in animal life to better adoptions . How was
that so? The cyanobacterica establish better air quality over a millions of
years and exchange those carbon dioxide compounds in it’s digestive cell
system to create oxygen compounds.
Reference
Diagram and research provided by the utep centennial museum . And
http://www.sunstar-solutions.com/sunstar/geology/CristoRey/mid-Cretaceous.htm
This page was first created by Bruce Cornet on 16 April 2005.