https://docs.google.com/document/d/17JQSxjZPFhHAo7EOw1oEu90SmbOLSuVotWP7e9G2dkk/edit?usp=sharing
Read the following article The Paradoxides Paradox: Plate Tectonics and Continental Drift
Links to an external site.
and answer the following questions regarding using fossils to reconstruct the paleogeography of Earth surface in the geologic past.
Answer the following Questions and submit to the dropbox for this assignment:
1. Why are trilobites important stratigraphic markers to key geologic horizons worldwide?
2. The fossils of closely related Paradoxides species have been found in such now-disparate locations as Eastern Canada, Sweden, Wales, the Czech Republic and Morocco (also in North Carolina). How does plate tectonics and continental drift explain why these very similar fossils (that when alive, lived close together) now are separated by wide ocean basins?
3. The article mentions exotic continents or landmasses like Gondwana and Avalonia. What is the name of the two oceans or seas they mention?
4. Click on the image of the Paradoxides davidis trapezopyge at the bottom of the article. Where is this trilobite from? Besides (not including) the other Paradoxides davidis trilobites, what trilobite does it most closely resemble? Where was this trilobite fossil found?
5. Look at the Late Cambrian paleogeographic map below. Laurentia is North America, Baltica is western Europe, and Siberia is central Asia. According to this paleogeographic map, Nova Scotia and New England (also North Carolina) have a closer affinity to which early Paleozoic continent?
6. Look at the exotic terranes of eastern North America map to the right (Figure 14-25). Which terranes on this map have the Paradoxides trilobites with Gondwanan affinity?
7. Look back at the Late Cambrian paleogrographic map below. Note that Laurentia and Baltic (they would eventually merge to form Laurasia in the late Paleozoic) are separated, yet Gondwana is fully assembled. How does this explain why there is far more evidence for Continental Drift on the southern hemisphere continents than in the northern hemisphere continents?