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Week Fourteen Science Warm Ups
History of Life

1. What is chemical evolution?

Answer: The process by which inorganic and simple organic compounds change into more complex compounds.

2. Name the three periods of the Mesozoic period.

Answer: Cretaceous, Jurassic, Triassic

3. Adaptive radiation is the rapid expansion of many new species. What group probably experienced adaptive radiation at the beginning of the Paleocene epoch?

Answer: mammals

4. There are two competing ideas to explain the mass extinction of dinosaurs. Name the two ideas.

Answer: meteor impact hypothesis and climate change hypothesis

5. Horses, donkeys and zebras have a common ancestor in the Pliohippus. Over time these species have become different from each other. What is this pattern of evolution called?

Answer: divergence

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