Geologic time scale

Hadeon eon

• Chaotic eon

• No life

• extremely hot

Archean eon

-Earth stabilized enough to form continents and life

Proterozoic eon

-longest eon

-great oxidation event

Phanerozoic Eon

• Our current eon

Paleozoic era, Cambrian Period

• Rapid diversification of life.

Paleozoic era, Ordovician period

• Booming with marine life

• first vertebrae appeared

• first plant appeared

Paleozoic era, Silurian period

• Layers of limestone found from this period

• First land plants appeared

• First land animal appeared

Paleozoic era, Devonian period

• Dawn of forests

• age of fishes

• first amphibians appeared

Paleozoic era, Carboniferous period

• majority of earth’s coal came from this period

• earth’s climate grew warmer

• rise of amphibians

• first reptiles appeared

Paleozoic era, Permian period

• first mass extinction

• diversification of reptiles

Mesozoic era, Triassic period

• first appearance of dinosaurs

• Gave way for new mammals, reptiles, and marine life

Mesozoic era, Jurassic period

• Diversification of dinosaurs

• first bird-like creatures appeared

Mesozoic era, Cretaceous period

• Breakup of Pangea

• diversification of flowering plants

• extinction of dinosaurs

• mammal dominated

Cenozoic era

• our current era

Cenozoic era, tertiary period, Paleocene epoch

• Diversification of mammals

Cenozoic era, tertiary period, Eocene epoch

• very warm epoch

• rise of birds, reptiles, mammals

• forests covered the earth

Cenozoic era, tertiary period, Oligocene epoch

• New animals appeared

• earth became cooler

• new environments appeared

• ice sheets formed

Cenozoic era, tertiary period, Miocene epoch

• Rise of modern ecosystems

• emergence of grasslands

Cenozoic era, tertiary period, Pliocene epoch

• transitional epoch

• climate changes into cooler and drier climate

• mass expansion of grasslands and savannahs

Quaternary period

our current period

Cenozoic era, quaternary period, Pleistocene epoch

• Ice age

• human evolution and diversification

Cenozoic era, quaternary period, Holocene epoch

• our current epoch

• shaped by human civilization