Exam 17: Earth History

What role did microplates play in the formation of Pangaea?

How was the style of plate tectonics different in the Archean than it is today? When did the present style of plate tectonics begin?

Why do we know very little about the planet's first 600 million years? Why do we know only slightly more about the early part of the Precambrian?

What is the Tippecanoe sequence?

The giant batholiths of the Sierra,Idaho,and Coast Range were emplaced during the:

In what two ways was the Laramide orogeny different from other orogenies?

The rock assemblage of sandstone,carbonate,and shale represents deposition on a(n)____________________ continental margin.

What do cyclothems represent?

By the (Early/Middle/Late)____________________ Cambrian most of North America was covered by epeiric seas with the exception of a highland known as the _________________________.

Mountain building in western North America did not begin until the Late Cretaceous Period.

After the Sauk Sea had regressed,the exposed surface of the North American continent was subjected to extensive glaciation.

Pleistocene glaciers covered about three times as much of Earth's surface as glaciers do now.

What is the North American Cordillera?

The ____________________ orogeny in Europe is a mirror of the Taconic and Acadian orogenies in North America.

Describe what happened to create the Sauk sequence from its beginning to the beginning of the Tippecanoe sequence.

The most abundant rock type deposited during the Kaskaskian sequence was ____________________.

The Acadian orogeny occurred as a result of:

What worldwide effect was caused by Gondwana moving over the south pole during the Carboniferous Period?

Areas of elongated mountain-building activity are called:

The boundary between the Tippecanoe and Sauk sequences is a vast unconformity.