1. Heredity and Adaptation Teaching Slides, 1.1 part 3
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2. Science Log Q3 week 7 Thursday Feb 23:
Explain the idea of superposition using a diagram that is labeled.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

3. Think question page 10
The Devonian period is considered the Age of Fishes.
Would you expect to find a tetrapod (animal with four legs) fossil closer to the Carboniferous period or the Silurian period? Why
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

4. Think question The Devonian period is considered the Age of Fishes.
Would you expect to find a tetrapod (animal with four legs) fossil closer to the Carboniferous period or the Silurian period? Why
The Carboniferous period.
Tetrapod fossils were found after the Devonian period; the Silurian came before.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

5. Think question
Certain kinds of shells are always found in rock layers lower than layers with plant fossils.
Dinosaur fossils show up only in layers above or with plant fossils.
What does this tell you about when these organisms lived?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

6. Think question
Certain kinds of shells are always found in rock layers lower than layers with plant fossils.
Dinosaur fossils show up only in layers above or with plant fossils.
What does this tell you about when these organisms lived?
Organisms with shells were oldest, plants next, and dinosaurs more recent. The dinosaurs and plants lived at the same time.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

7. Think question
What information would you need to find a more precise age of dinosaurs and plants?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

8. Think question
What information would you need to find a more precise age of dinosaurs and plants?
The age of the sedimentary rock that the fossils were found in, as determined by absolute or radioactive dating.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

9. Think question
Would you expect to find fish fossils in rocks 550 million years old?
Explain
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

10. Think question
Would you expect to find fish fossils in rocks 550 million years old?
Explain
No. Fish did not appear until later in the fossil record (the Ordovician period).
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

11. Think Questions
In the entire time that they have been looking for fossils, paleontologists, scientists who study fossils, have found the pattern demonstrated by the principle of superposition to be consistent.
In other words, they don’t find skeletons of organisms like horses in the same layer of rock that they find fossils of the first insects.
If they did, we could not rely on the fossil record.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

12. Discuss fossil record
What do the echinoid, snail, and shark tooth fossils have in common?
Why don’t we have fossils of their soft parts?
Why don’t we have fossils of every organism that ever lived?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 12

13. Discuss fossil record
What do the echinoid, snail, and shark tooth fossils have in common?
They are marine animals; the fossils are made from hard parts, either bone or shell.
Why don’t we have fossils of their soft parts?
Why don’t we have fossils of every organism that ever lived?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 12

14. Discuss fossil record
What do the echinoid, snail, and shark tooth fossils have in common?
Why don’t we have fossils of their soft parts?
The organisms rotted or were eaten.
Why don’t we have fossils of every organism that ever lived?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 12

15. Discuss fossil record
What do the echinoid, snail, and shark tooth fossils have in common?
Why don’t we have fossils of their soft parts?
Why don’t we have fossils of every organism that ever lived?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 12

16. Discuss fossil record
The fossil record doesn’t have examples of every organisms that ever lived. It is incomplete. Consider why this is so.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 12

17. Discuss fossil record
Why don’t we have fossils of every organism that ever lived?
If an organism didn’t have hard parts, it would not fossilize.
An organism might die in a place where it won’t get fossilized.
The entire organism could have been eaten.
An organism might have fossilized, but the fossil could have been destroyed or not yet found.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 12

18. 13. Construct a model time line
Write the name of the fossil on a self-stick note.
Write how many years ago it first appeared and draw a vertical arrow.
Place the note on the time line with the arrow pointing to the age.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 13

19. 13. Construct a model time line
If this strip represents the age of Earth, how long is it?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 13

20. 13. Construct a model time line
If this strip represents the age of Earth, how long is it?
4.6 m long
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 13

21. Add events to time line Teacher master B, Time-Line Events
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 14

22. Debrief events to time line
Oldest rock is 4.3 bya
Oldest known fossils (3.5 bya) are stromatolites; single-celled bacteria
Oldest fish fossils (518 mya) are the ocean-dwelling Metaspriggina Walcotti
First fossils of land plants (475 mya) are liverworts from Argentina
Oldest insect fossils (410 mya) are of a set of jaws of Rhyniognatha, found in a drawer in a museum in London.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 14

23. Debrief events to time line
Oldest dinosaur fossils (245 mya) are from Africa---the upper arm and back bone; Nyasasaurus parringtoni)
Oldest true mammal fossils (225 mya) are of a tiny mouse-like creature, Adelobasileus
Oldest human (Homo sapiens) fossils (195,000 years old) are Omo I and Omo II, fossils found in southern Ethiopia.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record
Step 14

24. Share observations
What was life on Earth like for most of Earth’s history
How do scientists know how old the fossils are?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

25. Share observations
What was life on Earth like for most of Earth’s history
Small, simple, single-celled
How do scientists know how old the fossils are?
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

26. Share observations
What was life on Earth like for most of Earth’s history
Small, simple, single-celled
How do scientists know how old the fossils are?
They can use absolute-dating methods to determine the age of the rock the fossils are in.
Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record

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Heredity and Adaptation Course, 1.1: The Fossil Record