Lesson Info
- 290-320 min
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Lesson Description
The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, which occurred 66 mya, caused the mass extinction of nearly 75% of the plant and animal species on Earth. This event is marked by a thin layer of sediment which can be found throughout the world in marine and terrestrial rocks. The boundary clay shows high levels of iridium, which is rare on Earth but abundant in asteroids.
Central Question
What evidence exists for the extinction of the dinosaurs and 75% of all animal and plant species at the end of the Cretaceous Period?
Instructional Objective
Construct an explanation, using empirical and observational data from the rock record, for the impact of a natural event on the carrying capacities of an ecosystem and the natural selection that results from limited resources.
Topics
Learning Outcomes
- Investigate the patterns in fossil data over time that aid in the discovery of significant events in Earth’s history.
- Investigate the global patterns in chemical composition data over time that aid in the discovery of significant events in Earth’s history.
- Determine the size of the impact crater, using the global patterns of iridium in the rock record, to search for the location of the impact potentially responsible for changes to the environment.
- Investigate the global patterns of living organisms, before and after the KPg boundary, to identify the significant changes to life on Earth.
Prerequisites
- Food Webs
- Relative Age Dating
- Evolution Concepts
- Geologic Time Scale
- Carrying Capacity
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