A history of planet Earth.

Using relative dating and radiometric dating, geologists have pieced together A history of planet Earth.the calendar is the Geologic Time Scale.
The Geologic Time Scale has irregular episodes (not like the modern calendar of days, weeks and months).
1. Eons are the longest spans of time covering half a billion years or

more. There are only two eons, the Precambrian (characterized by only single-celled organisms, or the total absence of life) and the Phanerozoic, meaning visible life indicating that fossils became larger and easier to see. 2. Eras are shorter, covering hundreds of millions of years. The eras consist of the Paleozoic or old life Era, the Mesozoic or middle life Era, and the Cenozoic or new life Era. 3. Periods are the most common division of time, usually lasting several tens of millions of years in duration. 4. Epochs are the shortest division, covering several million to thousands of years in length.

A history of planet Earth.

Phanerozoic

A history of planet Earth.

The Geologic Time Scale

A history of planet Earth.

A history of planet Earth.

Placing a boundary -

The Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary 65 Ma

A history of planet Earth.

The fossil record

A history of planet Earth.

Perhaps Huttons most lasting contribution to the science of geology is the concept of Uniformitarianism which states that the past history of Earth is best explained by our observation of modern processes. That is, geologic principles have been uniform over time. Sir Archibald Geike (1835-1924) famously summed up uniformitarianism as the present is the key to the past.

A history of planet Earth.

Darwin observed that all living things reproduced at high rates and yet no one group of organisms had been able to overwhelm Earths surface (other than cockroaches!). In fact, the actual size of any population tends to remain fairly constant over time. This led Darwin to conclude that not all individuals in a generation will survive hence nature must select those with favorable variations. Natural selection was the mechanism he proposed by which evolution occurred.

Evidence of evolution

Selective pressure Environmental changes from forests to grasslands across Europe and North America -teeth Phylogeny -hoof ancestral lineage -speed and strength -brain size -lengthened jaws

Process of unconformity
Continuous deposition of sediment layers.

Uplift and folding of conformable sequence of sedimentary rocks.

Erosion forms an erosion surface.

Renewed deposition forms an angular unconformity.

NICOLAUS STENO (1669)

1. Principle of Superposition: In any sequence of undisturbed strata, the oldest layer is at the bottom and higher layers are successively younger.