Part A: 

Answer the following questions as succinctly as you can. None of the answers should be more than a couple of sentences.

1. What is the age of the oldest sea floor in the Atlantic basin?  Approximately where is this situated?
2. Describe how  and why the breakup of Pangea is likely to have affected the Earth’s climate
3. There are passive margins all around the Atlantic Ocean. What is a passive margin? (1 point) Where else in the world can you find a passive margin?
4. Explain the link between the accretion of terranes to the west coast of North America and the formation of the Rocky Mountains.
5. What is the likely connection between carbon isotope levels and the PermianTriassic extinction?
6. Angiosperms only appear in the fossil record during the Cretaceous, but they now represent over 90% of plant species. Identify and provide two reasons why they have become so successful.
7. Name (at the “Order” level) two living types of archosaurs and two extinct types.
8. Provide two lines of evidence that imply that some (or most) dinosaurs may have been endothermic (2 points), and two that imply that some (or most) may have been ectothermic.
9. There is some evidence that there was a gradual reduction of dinosaur diversity in the last few million years of the Cretaceous and that a few dinosaurs may have lived into the early Paleogene. Comment on these concepts in the context of extinction theories other than, or in addition to, the impact hypothesis.

Part B: Comparing the Rockies and the Coast Range 

Western Canada’s two main mountain ranges—the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range – have very different origins and geology. Describe some of the differences regarding the timing and geological processes of each formation; describe the types and ages of rocks that comprise each range. For each range include a photograph (of your own, or from the Internet) that illustrates the differences in their composition and structure.

Part C: The dinosaurs 

There are seven sub-orders of dinosaurs, as described in Table 15.1 (Summary Chart for the Orders and Suborders of Dinosaurs) of the textbook. Complete the following table which only includes six of them. You may copy and paste this table to your assignment and work on it, or you can draw your own table.

1. For each of the sub-orders select an example dinosaur, find a representative drawing (either skeletal or life-like) on the Internet and insert a live URL link for the image into the table.
2. Describe that dinosaur’s lifestyle characteristics (e.g., typical stance, diet, defensive or offensive strategies).
3. Provide the age range over which it is thought to have lived (in Ma).