Geological time scale

Geological time scale

The vast expanse of geological time has been separated into eras, periods, and epochs. The numbers
included below refer to the beginnings of the division in which the title appears. The numbers are in
millions of years. The named divisions of time are for the most part based on fossil evidence and
principles for relative dating over the past two hundred years. Only with the application of radiometric
dating have numbers been obtained for the divisions observed from field observations.

Plant and Animal

Era Period Epoch
Development
Holocene (.01) Humans develop
Quaternary
Pleistocene (1.8)
Pliocene (5.3)
Miocene (23.8) "Age of mammals"
Cenozoic
Oligocene (33.7)
Tertiary
Eocene (54.8)

Paleocene (65.0) Extinction of dinosaurs and

many other species.
Cretaceous (144) First flowering plants
Jurassic (206)

"Age of
Mesozoic First birds
Reptiles"
Triassic (248)

Dinosaurs dominant.
Permian (290) Extinction of trilobites and many other
marine animals
Carboniferous:
Pennyslvanian (323)

"Age of First reptiles

Amphibians"
Carboniferous:
Mississippian (354)

Large coal swamps

Large Amphibians abundant.

Devonian (417) First insect fossils

Paleozoic

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Geological time scale

"Age of Fishes" Fishes dominant

Silurian (443)

First land plants

Ordovician (490) First fishes

"Age of
Trilobites dominant
Cambrian (540) Invertibrates"

First organisms with shells

First multicelled organisms

Precambrian - comprises about 88% of geologic time

First one-celled organisms
(4500)

Origin of Earth

Adapted from Lutgens and Tarbuck. They cite the Geological Society of America as the source of the
data.

There is another kind of time division used - the "eon". The entire interval of the existence of visible life
is called the Phanerozoic eon. The great Precambrian expanse of time is divided into the Proterozoic,
Archean, and Hadean eons in order of increasing age.

The names of the eras in the Phanerozoic eon (the eon of visible life) are the Cenozoic ("recent life"),
Mesozoic ("middle life") and Paleozoic ("ancient life"). The further subdivision of the eras into 12
"periods" is based on identifiable but less profound changes in life-forms. In the most recent era, the
Cenozoic, there is a further subdivision of time into epochs.

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