Geology Timeline

By willidej

  • Cambrian Period- 570-500 MYA

    Cambrian Period- 570-500 MYA
    Earliest record of marine life, Trilobites are dominant.

  • Ordovician Period- 500-435 MYA

    Ordovician Period- 500-435 MYA
    Echinoderms, invertebrates are dominant, mollusks become abundant. Earliest fish that are jawless and later, jawes and armored fish.

  • Silurian Period- 435-395 MYA

    Silurian Period- 435-395 MYA
    Earliest terrestrial plants and animals. Tiktaalik Eurypterids develop.

  • Devonian Period- 395-345 MYA

    Devonian Period- 395-345 MYA
    Armored fish go extinct, but abundance of several species of fish. Earliest amphibians and ammonites.

  • Carboniferous Period- 345-280 MYA

    Abundamnt sharks and amphibians. Large swamps and coal forming forrests. Earliest reptiles scale trees and seed ferns

  • Permian Period- 280-225 MYA

    Permian Period- 280-225 MYA
    Extinction of many types of marine animals including trilobites.

  • Triassic Period- 225-195 MYA

    Triassic Period- 225-195 MYA
    Earliest Dinosaurs, abundant cycads and conifers.

  • Jurassic Period- 195-136 MYA

    Jurassic Period- 195-136 MYA
    Earliest birds and mammals abundant dinosaurs and ammonites.

  • Cretaceous 136-65 MYA

    Cretaceous 136-65 MYA
    Earliest flowering plants, climax of dinosaurs followed by their extinction. Great decline of brachiopods. Abundance of bony fish- KT Extinction.

  • Tertiary Period 65-1.8 MYA

    Tertiary Period 65-1.8 MYA
    Earliest placental mammals, modern mammals, large running mammals

  • Quaternary Period- 1.8- Present

    Quaternary Period- 1.8- Present
    Large Carnivores, neanderthals, humans, mastodons.