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Cambrian Period 570-800 MYA
The Cambrian period, at the beginning of the Paleozonic, was the first time that multicellular life forms flourished on earth. By the end of the Paleozoic, the beginning of the Mosotoic, all the continents of th earth came together to form one giant continent called Pangaea and dinosaurs began to roam on land. -
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period , the second of six of the Paleozoic era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago. The Ordovician, named after the Welsh tribe of the Ordovices, was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879. For most of the Late Ordovician, life continued to flourish, but at and near the end of the period there were mass-extinction events that seriously affected planktonic forms like conodonts, graptolites, and some groups of trilobites. -
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period that extends from the end of the Ordovician period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago), to the beginning of the Devonian period. The base of the Silurian is set at a major extinction event when 60% of marine species were wiped out. During this period, the Earth entered a long warm greenhouse phase, and warm shallow seas covered much of the equatorial land masses. Early in the Silurian, glaciers retreated back into the South Pole til they almost disappear. -
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period of the Paleozoic era spanning from 416 to 359.2 million years ago . It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied. During the Devonian Period, which occurred in the Paleozoic era, the first fish evolved legs and started to walk on land. The first seed-bearing plants spread across dry land, forming huge forests. In the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian period. -
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period that extends from the end of the Devonian period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Ma, to the beginning of the Permian period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma. The Carboniferous was a time of glaciation, low sea level and mountain building; a minor marine extinction event occurred in the middle of the period. The name comes from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing." Many beds of coal were laid down during this period, hence the name. -
Permian
The Permian is a geologic period characterized by widespread, diverse and maturing lifeforms which comes just after the Carboniferous and that extends from 299.0 ± 0.8 to 251.0 ± 0.4 Ma (million years before the present). It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era and famous for its ending epoch event, the largest mass extinction known to science. The Permian period was named after the kingdom of Permia in modern-day Russia by Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison in 1841. -
Triassic
The Triassic is a geologic period that extends from about 251 to 199 Ma. As the first period of the Mesozoic Era. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events. During the Triassic, both marine and continental life show an adaptive radiation beginning from the starkly impoverished biosphere that followed the Permian-Triassic extinction. Corals of the hexacorallia group made their first appearance. The first flying vertebrates, the pterosaurs, evolved during the T. -
Jurassic
The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about 199.6± 0.6 Ma (million years ago) to 145.5± 4 Ma. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the "Age of Reptiles". The name “Jura” is derived from the celtic root “jor” which was latinised into “juria”, meaning forest (i.e. “Jura” is forest mountains). -
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous is a geologic period from circa 145.5 ± 4 to 65.5 ± 0.3 million years ago. In many foreign languages this period is known as "chalk period". The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate and high eustatic sea level. The oceans and seas were populated with now extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists; and the land by dinosaurs. At the same time, new groups of mammals and birds as well as flowering plants appeared. -
Tertiary
The Tertiary is a term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.588 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, at start of the Cenozoic era, spanning to beginning of the most recent Ice Age. Tectonic activity continued as Gondwana finally split completely apart, and India collided with the Eurasian plate. South America was connected to North America toward the end of the Tertiary. -
Quaternary
The Quaternary period is the youngest of three periods of the Cenozoic era in the geologic time scale, spanning 2.588 +/- 0.005 million years ago to the present. The 2.6 million years of the Quaternary represents the time during which recognizable HUMANS existed. The climate was one of periodic glaciations with continental glaciers moving as far from the poles as 40 degrees latitude. Few major new animals evolved.
