| Era | Period | Epoch | Major events | Start (Years) |
|---|
| Cenozoic |
Quaternary |
Holocene |
The last ice age recedes, bringing with it a 400 foot rise in sea level.
Rise of human civilization.
|
11,700 |
| Pleistocene |
Major ice age where continental glaciers cover much of North America and Europe.
Pleistocene mega-fauna flourish including mammoths, mastadons, giant sloths, horses, bears, etc.
Evolution of anatomically modern humans. Neandertals, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens appear.
|
2.6 Million |
| Neogene |
Pliocene |
Ape-like ancestors of modern humans.
Global climates cooled and became dryer with the onset of glaciation cycles.
|
5.3 Million |
| Miocene |
Plants and animals of the Miocene were fairly modern. Mammals and birds were well-established. Whales and seals spread. The Megalodon ruled the seas.
Mountain building took place in western North America, Europe, and East Asia.
|
25 Million |
| Paleogene |
Oligocene |
Rapid evolution and diversification of fauna, especially mammals. Major evolution and dispersal of modern types of flowering plants.
|
33.9 Million |
| Eocene |
Archaic mammals flourish and continue to develop.
Appearance of several "modern" mammal families. Primitive whales diversify.
|
56 Million |
| Paleocene |
Climate tropical. modern plants appear.
Mammals diversify into a number of primitive lineages following the extinction of the dinosaurs. First large mammals appear.
Indian Subcontinent collides with Asia.
|
66 Million |
| Mesozoic |
Cretaceous |
Late |
Many new types of dinosaurs (e.g. Tyrannosaurs, Titanosaurs, duck bills, and horned dinosaurs) evolve on land, as do modern crocodilians.
Flowering plants proliferate, along with new types of insects. More modern teleost fish begin to appear. Ammonites, belemnites, rudist bivalves, echinoids and sponges all common.
Mosasaurs and modern sharks appear in the sea.
Primitive birds gradually replace pterosaurs. Monotremes, marsupials and placental mammals appear.
Major extinction at the end of Cretaceous kills off 3/4 of plant and animals includes dinosaurs.
|
100.5 Million |
| Early |
145 Million |
| Jurassic |
Late |
Many types of dinosaurs, such as sauropods, carnosaurs, and stegosaurs.
Mammals common but small. First birds and lizards. Ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs rule the sea.
Breakup of super-continent Pangaea into Gondwana and Laurasia.
|
163 Million |
| Middle |
174 Million |
| Early |
201 Million |
| Triassic |
Late |
First dinosaurs being to dominate the land. Icthyosaurs and nothosaurs the oceans and pterosaurs the air.
First mammals and crocodilia appear
Many large amphibians.
|
235 Million |
| Middle |
247 Million |
| Early |
252 Million |
| Paleozoic |
Permian |
Late |
Landmasses unite into supercontinent Pangaea.
Mass extinction at the end of the Permain kills off 95% of all life on earth including all all trilobites, graptolites, and blastoids.
|
259 Million |
| Middle |
272 Million |
| Early |
298 Million |
| Carboniferous |
Pennsylvanian |
Winged insects radiate suddenly. Amphibians common and diverse. First reptiles and coal forests (scale trees, ferns, club trees, giant horsetails, Cordaites, etc.)
|
323 Million |
| Mississippian |
Large primitive trees, first land vertebrates, and amphibious sea-scorpions live amid coal-forming coastal swamps.
Early sharks are common and quite diverse.
Trilobites begin their decline becoming much less diverse.
|
358 Million |
| Devonian |
Late |
Land colonized by plants and animals.
Fish rapidly evolve become much more diverse and begin to rule the seas.
Corals, bryozoa, goniatites, brachiopods and trilobites very common.
|
382 Million |
| Middle |
393 Million |
| Early |
419 Million |
| Silurian |
Upper |
First Vascular plants, first millipedes and arthropleurids on land.
First jawed fishes populate the seas.
Sea-scorpions reach large size. Corals, brachiopods, and crinoids all abundant.
Trilobites and mollusks diverse.
|
423 Million |
Middle |
433 Million |
| Lower |
443 Million |
| Ordovician |
Late |
Invertebrates diversify into many new types.
Early corals, articulate brachiopods , bivalves, nautiloids, trilobites, ostracods, bryozoa, many types of echinoderms (crinoids, cystoids, starfish, etc.), branched graptolites are common.
Conodonts (early planktonic vertebrates) appear.
First green plants and fungi on land. Ice age at end of period.
|
458 Million |
| Middle |
470 Million |
| Early |
485 Million |
| Cambrian |
Upper |
Major diversification of life in the Cambrian Explosion. Numerous fossils; most modern animal phyla appear.
Appearances include: trilobites, priapulid worms, sponges, vertebrates, jawless fish, small shelly animals, conodonts, etc.
Supercontinent Gondwana emerges.
|
497 Million |
| Middle |
509 Million |
| Early |
541 Million |
Neo-
proterozoic |
Vendian or Ediacaran |
Good fossils of the first multi-celled animals. Ediacaran biota flourish worldwide in seas. Simple trace fossils of possible worm-like animals. First sponges and trilobitomorphs. Enigmatic forms include many soft-jellied creatures shaped like bags, disks, or quilts.
|
635 Million |
| Cryogenian |
Possible "Snowball Earth" period. Fossils still rare.
|
850 Million |
| Tonian |
Trace fossils of simple multi-celled eukaryotes.
|
1 Billion |
Meso-
proterozoic |
Stenian |
|
1.2 Billion |
| Ectasian |
|
1.4 Billion |
| Calymmian |
|
1.6 Billion |
Paleo-
proterozoic |
Statherian |
First complex single-celled life: protists with nuclei
|
1.8 Billion |
| Orosirian |
|
2.05 Billion |
| Rhyacian |
|
2.3 Billion |
| Siderian |
|
2.5 Billion |
| Neoarchean |
|
2.8 Billion |
| Mesoarchean |
First stromatolites (probably colonial cyanobacteria). Oldest macrofossils.
|
3.2 Billion |
| Paleoarchean |
First known oxygen-producing bacteria. Oldest definitive microfossils.
|
3.6 Billion |
| Eoarchean |
Simple single-celled life (probably bacteria and archaea). Oldest probable microfossils.
|
4 Billion |
| Early Imbrian |
Indirect photosynthetic evidence (e.g., kerogen) of primordial life.
|
4.1 Billion |
| Nectarian |
|
4.3 Billion |
| Basin Groups |
Oldest known rock (4,030 Million Years Old |
4.5 Billion |
| Cryptic |
Oldest known mineral, Zircon (4,404 ± 8 Million Years Ago).
Formation of Moon (4,533 Million Years ago), probably from giant impact.
Formation of Earth (4,567 to 4,570 Million Years Ago)
|
4.57 Billion |
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