Before each class lecture I will post here a list of preparation questions. These questions are designed to prepare you for each lecture. If we have a pop quiz on the listed day, it will include some or all of these questions AND at least one surprise question from previous lectures to encourage review. I recommend you thus have answers for them — at least in your head! — before each class meeting. You will have twelve pop quizzes by the end of the course, with the lowest two grades dropped. If you are absent for any reason when a quiz is given (other than a scheduled college event you told me about in advance), your grade will be recorded as a zero. You may use any source to answer these questions before class. For a quiz, of course, you’re on your own.
December 8 (Thursday) –
1. What do I mean when I say a trace fossil is preserved as a concave epirelief? How about a convex hyporelief?
2. What is bioerosion? Please be prepared to describe by name one ichnogenus formed by bioerosion, including the organism or organisms which likely created it.
December 6 (Tuesday) —
1. Why are graptolites, especially the graptoloid variety, so useful for biostratigraphy? In other words, why can we use them for correlation and dating many rock units?
December 1 (Thursday) —
1. Describe three differences (there are many) between a “regular” echinoid and its “irregular” cousins.
November 29 (Tuesday) —
[Same as last week!]
1. Please be able to describe in detail how a sea star eats a clam, from killing it to digestion.
2. Edrioasteroids are an extinct group of echinoderms. When did they live? What did they look like? How did they likely feed? How do we know they were echinoderms? Please be able to make a simple drawing of one.
November 17 (Thursday) —
1. What kind of vision system did the eurypterids have?
2. How is the Phylum Echinodermata separated from other phyla?
November 15 (Tuesday) –
1. Trilobites had very diverse life modes. Please pick one genus of trilobite and be prepared to discuss its hypothesized mode of life (movement and feeding habits) in class on Tuesday.
November 10 (Thursday) –
1. Hyoliths have a pair of odd structures called helens. (We’ll talk in class about how they got this curious name!) What are the most common suggestions for the function of the helens in hyoliths? This will be our introduction to the paleobiology of this group.
November 1 (Tuesday) –
1. Bivalves open and close their shells in a different manner than the superficially similar brachiopods. Please describe the muscles and other structures involved when a bivalve opens and closes its two valves.
2. How does labial palp deposit feeding work in a subgroup of bivalves?
[Essay #2 due by 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, November 1 (2016-essay-2-assignment). Just a reminder! Ask questions in class or lab if you have them. Three research references also due by Tuesday.]
October 27 (Thursday) —
1. Tell me about the life habits of a scaphopod. What does it eat? Where does it live? How does it move?
October 25 (Tuesday) —
1. Cephalopods on Tuesday — easily the most interesting of the mollusks. What are the life habits of the modern Nautilus? We use it as a model for ancient cephalopods, so we should know more about its biology. Where does it live? What does it eat?
2. How does modern Nautilus control its buoyancy?
October 20 (Thursday) —
1. Limpets are interesting gastropod types. Be prepared to tell me about their life habits and shell morphology. Assuming excellent preservation, how do you tell the shell of a limpet from that of a monoplacophoran?
October 18 (Tuesday) —
1. Gastropods undergo a fascinating process during development called torsion. What is torsion and what are the advantages to doing it?
October 6 (Thursday) –
1. Bryozoans have a wonderful collection of zooid types. Please be prepared to offer one-sentence definitions of each of these:
kenozooids
spinozooids
avicularia
vibracula
autozooids
gonozooids
October 4 (Tuesday) —
1. Spiriferid and spiriferinid brachiopods had elaborate spiral lophophores. What advantages were possible with this morphology? What could this tell us about the environments in which they lived?
2. Coarse plicae in some brachiopods produced a zig-zag commissure. Develop a hypothesis for the possible advantages of such a commissure. Maybe, though, the zig-zagging is just a consequence of having plicae? Be ready to discuss.
September 29 (Thursday) —
1. Brachiopods and clams both have bivalved shells (shells with two parts hinged together). How then do you distinguish a brachiopod shell from that of a clam? (This will be useful for your field collections.)
September 20 (Tuesday) —
1. Scleractinian corals have aragonitic skeletons. What can you predict about their preservation in the Mesozoic?
2. What are hermatypic corals? In what sorts of environments do you find them?
September 13 (Tuesday) —
1. Most modern corals have zooxanthellae. What do they do for the coral animals? What do corals do for them? If a coral has zooxanthellae, what can we predict about its living environment?
2. Scleractinian corals have aragonitic skeletons. What can you predict about their preservation in the Mesozoic?
September 8 (Thursday) —
1. Why are the stromatoporoids, which look like lumps of laminated stone (actually, they are lumps of laminated stone!), classified with the sponges?
2. What features distinguish the Phylum Cnidaria?
September 6 (Tuesday) —
[I hope by now you’ve set up your Dropbox folder. Really.]
1. Why might a skeleton made of silica have some advantages over one made of calcium carbonate?
2. Why would radiolarians be more common in many deep-water marine sediments than planktic foraminiferans? There could be more than one reason.
September 1 (Thursday) —
[Have you set up your Dropbox folder? Now’s a good time!]
1. Please describe a coccolith (or coccolithophorid) in terms of what it looks like and how it lives.
2. Some foraminiferans have agglutinated tests. What does this mean?
August 30 (Tuesday) —
A fossil unknown to solve!
On the first day of class you will receive a fossil of your very own. It will look like one of those shown above. Everyone has the same kind of fossil. Your job is to identify it using whatever means you can, and then tell me its likely age and, for the hat trick, where it was likely collected. For all of these there is a sliding scale of precision. I’d like you to get it down to the species, for example, but you may be only able to get it to a Class, Order, Family, or Genus. For the age you might be able to get the Era but not the Period. For the location the continent but not the country. Please bring your answers to class on Tuesday, August 30. Those who get it right, or close enough, earn glory and a mention in the department blog!
(Update: The answer.)