|
EON
|
ERA |
PERIOD |
EPOCH |
TIME |
P
H
A
N
E
R
O
Z
O
I
C |
CENOZOIC
Modern world with
animals, plants and geographical features as we know it
today, came into being. |
Quaternary
Humans appear |
Holocene
Humans start to
dominate the world.
Sea levels
rise after end of ice age drowning large areas of land.
|
10.000 yrs
ago till present |
Pleistocene
First primitive humans appear.
1/4th of land covered by ice. |
1.7 million -
10. 000 years |
Tertiary
Mammals become the dominant larger
animals replacing the reptiles. |
Pliocene
Human-like
apes make appearance.
Climates cools as Ice Age nears.
Galapagos
islands rise from the sea.
Panama land bridge emerges 3 million years ago
connecting South with North
America. |
5 - 1.7 million |
Miocene
Camel, cat,
horse, raccoon, weasel and rhinoceros dominate. |
23 - 5 million |
Oligocene
True Primates make first appearance.
Horses and tapir on American soil.
|
35 - 23 million |
Eocene
Mammals
adapt to marine life.
Formation of Andes end.
|
57 - 35 million |
Paleocene
Marsupials,
carnivores, ungulates.
Modern continents start to form. |
65 - 57 million |
MESOZOIC
Age of Reptiles |
Cretaceous
65 million years ago, mass extinction of dinosaurs.
Flowering
plants and modern trees appear.
Formation of the Andes begin. |
145 -
65
million years |
Jurassic
Birds make appearance, reptiles dominate sea and land.
Cycads, conifers, ginkgoes and seed ferns.
South America breaks away from Africa
|
210 - 145 million
years |
Triassic
Dinosaurs and first true primitive mammals appear.
Evergreen trees dominate.
Breakup of Pangaea into 2 supercontinents. |
245 - 210 million
years |
PALEOZOIC
Evolution from primitive to
more advanced life.
Life rises out of the oceans and ventures on land. |
Permian
Great mass extinction as tribolites, many
fishes and corals die out because of environmental changes.
Cycad like
plants and true conifers appear in
the north.
Land masses drift together to form Pangaea. |
290 - 245 million
years |
Carboniferous
Amphibians
venture out of the sea and on to land.
Lush forests in swamplands turned into
today's coal and oil deposits. Horsetails, lycopods, ferns abound.
|
360 - 290
million years |
Devonian
Age of fish with bony fish making
appearance.
Land covered with giant ferns.
|
410 - 360 million
years |
Silurian
Later a scorpion became first air-breathing
animal.
Oceans teem with vertebrate, jawed fish and corals.
Vascular
plants venture on land as first terrestrial life. |
440 - 410 million
years |
Ordovician
Trilobites
are still abundant and vertebrate fish make first appearance and
so do corals.
|
510 - 440 million
years |
Cambrian
Marine invertebrates, especially trilobites
abound in sea
but no land animals yet.
Seaweed in the oceans and lichens on
land.
Formation of Gondwanaland supercontinent.
|
570 - 510 million
years |
PROTEROZOIC
Soft-bodied marine invertebrates emerge 900 million years
ago.
Eucaryotic cells in oceans.
|
2.5 billion
-
570 million |
Prokaryotic cells only, bacteria in the
oceans
Photosynthesizing bacteria
in the oceans begin producing oxygen, which settled in the
atmosphere and was necessary for the later evolution of
animals and plants.
Consolidation of earth's crust and first sign of life. |
3.8 - 2.5
billion years |
FORMATION
OF EARTH
|
4.6
billion ago |
FORMATION
OF UNIVERSE
|
20 - 7
billions
of years ago. |
