Evolutionary Processes

Adaptive radition: the evolution of ecological and phenotypic diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage.

Adaptive zone: Minimum amount of energy required to get a specific reaction going

Analogous strcuture: Body parts that differed in evolutionarily distant lineages but converged in structure and function.

Homologous structure: comparable body parts that show underlying similarity.

asteroid: Rocky, metallic body hurtling through space.

Comparative morphology:

Derived trait: novel feature that evolved but once and is shared only by the descendants of the ancestral species in which it evolved.

Fossil: Recognizable, physical evidence of an organism that lived in the distant past.

Fossilization: How a fossil form.

Geological time scale:   Time scale for the Earth's history 

Gowanda: supercontinent; with other land masses, it formed Pangea.

Half-life: The time it takes for half of a given quantity of any radioisotope to decay

Lineage: line of descent.

Morphological corvengence:  Macroevolutionary pattern. In response to similar environmental pressures over time.

Morphological divergence: Macroevolutionary pattern; genetically diverging lineages undergo change from body form of a common ancestor.

Pangea:  Paleozoic supercontinent upon which the first terrestrial plants and animals evolved.

Plate tectonics theory: theory that states that all plates are slowly moving and have rafted continents to new positions over time.

Stratification: Stacked layers of sedimentary rock, built up by gradual deposition of volcanic ash, silt, and other materials over time.

Theory of Uniformity: Early theory that the earth's surface changes in gradual, uniformly repetitive ways.