Geologic time drawing

Geologic Time Scale Unit

By charang
  • Jan 1, 1000

    Hadean Era (4600 to 4000 MYA)

    Earth and its solar system were forming.
  • Jan 1, 1100

    Archean (4000 to 2500 MYA)

    life first appeared
    oldest fossils are 3.5 billion years old
  • Jan 1, 1200

    Proterozoic Era (2500 to 542 MYA)

    stable continents appeared
    bacteria, archeans, and eukaryotics began to appear
  • Jan 1, 1300

    Cambrian Period

    mjor groups of animals appeared in the fossil record
  • Jan 1, 1400

    Ordovician Period (488 to 443 MYA)

    area north of the tropics was almost ocean
    known for its diverse marine invertebrates, including graphtolites, trilobites, brachiopods, and conodonts
  • Jan 1, 1500

    Silurian Period (443 to 416 MYA)

    rapid spread of jawless fish
    relatives of spiders and centipedes
    evidence of vascular plants

  • Devonian Period (416 to 359 MYA)

    ferns, horsetails, and seed plants
    three major continental masses (North America and Europe, Siberia, and South America, Antartica, India and Australia)

  • Carboniferous Period (359 to 299 MYA)

    more tropical humid climate than today
    more modern looking fish appeared

  • Permian Period (299 to 251 MYA)

    end of the Permian period has the largest mass extinction recorded in the history of the Earth.
    plants shifted to gymnosperms

  • Triassic Period (251 to 199 MYA)

    breakup of Pangaea
    low sea level and high elevated continents

  • Jurassic Period (199 to 145 MYA)

    plant eating dinosaurs, fish, squid and ammonites were populous
    plenty of land plants, and early mammals no bigger than rats

  • Cretaceous Period (145 to 65 MYA)

    extinction of the dinosaurs
    diversification of modern insects

  • Paleogene Period (65 to 23 MYA)

    oldest known fossils of most modern mammals appear
    mammals such as horses, deer, camel, elephants, cats, and dogs existed

  • Neogene Period (23 to 2 MYA)

    pattern of biological change where we see different climates
    Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountain ranges formed.

  • Quaternary Period (2 MYA to present)

    one of the largest land animals, the mammoth, was alive
    saber-toothed cats, sloths, and other large mammals lived in North America
    Beginning 11, 700 years ago, humans came into existence