Weather Patterns

1. Describe the major paleogeographic trends of the Cambrian period and how they affected patterns of sedimentation.

2. a) Why did greater carbonate deposition occur on the craton during the Ordovician and Silurian periods than during the Cambrian?

b) What evidence indicates that the Iapetus Ocean began closing during the middle Ordovician period?

3. Describe the origin and significance of

a) Silurian evaporates

b) Devonian-Mississippian black shales

c) Pennsylvanian cyclothems, and

d) Permian reefs

4. Discuss the Paleozoic evolutionary history of two of the following:

a) fish

b) amphibians

c) reptiles

d) vascular plants

5. a) How do scientists distinguish between reptiles and mammals?

b) How did the marine invertebrates of the late Paleozoic differ from those of the early Paleozoic?

6. Describe the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian period. What are some probable causes?

7. a) Describe the significance of BIFs, red beds, stromatoliites and oxygen content in the atmosphere.

b) Discuss how plate movements during the late Paleozoic affected world-wide

weather patterns.