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Geological Time scale
The history of the earth is divided into time periods according to geological and paleontological evidence. The following table illustrates how the time periods are divided and the names given to them.
The names for each time period were taken from The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) who are responsible for a standard, globally applicable stratigraphic scale
| Eon | Era | Period/Age | Epoch | Time (millions of years ago) |
Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phanerozoic | Cenozoic | Neogene | Holocene | Present day | modern humans evolve |
| Pleistocene | 11,500 years ago | large mammal extinction | |||
| Pilocene | 1.81 mya | ||||
| Miocene | 5.33 mya | ||||
| Paleogene | Oligocene | 23.03 mya | |||
| Eocene | 33.9 mya | appearance of modern mammals | |||
| Paleocene | 55.8 mya | ||||
| Mesozoic | Cretaceous | Upper | 65.5 mya | dinosaurs reach peak then become extinct | |
| Lower | 99.6 mya | ||||
| Jurassic | Upper | 145.5 mya | first birds and marsupial mammals | ||
| Middle | 161.2 mya | ||||
| Lower | 175.6 mya | ||||
| Triassic | Upper | 199.6 mya | first dinosaurs | ||
| Middle | 228 mya | ||||
| Lower | 245 mya | ||||
| Paleozoic | Permian | Lopingian | 251 mya | Permian extinction loss of 95% of life | |
| Guadalupianr | 260.4 mya | ||||
| Cisuralian | 270.6 mya | ||||
| Carboniferous | Pennsylvanian | 299 mya | first reptiles, insects abound | ||
| Mississippian | 318.1 mya | first land vertebrates | |||
| Devonian | Upper | 359.2 mya | first amphibians, & seed bearing plants | ||
| Middle | 385.3 mya | ||||
| Lower | 397.5 mya | ||||
| Silurian | Pridoli | 416 mya | first jawed fish | ||
| Ludlow | 418.7 mya | ||||
| Wenlock | 422.9 mya | ||||
| Llandovery | 428.2 mya | ||||
| Ordovician | Upper | 443.7 mya | abundant invertebrates, first land plants | ||
| Middle | 460.9 mya | ||||
| Lower | 471.8 mya | ||||
| Cambrian | Furongian | 488.3 mya | Cambrian explosion - major diversification of life | ||
| Middle | 501 mya | ||||
| Lower | 513 mya | ||||
| Proterozoic | Neoproterozoic | Precambrian collective term for Archean & Proterozoic eons | 542 mya | first multi-celled organism | |
| Mesoproterozoic | 1000 mya | ||||
| Paleoproterozoic | 1600 mya | first complex single celled organism | |||
| Archean | Neoarchean | 2500 mya | |||
| Mesoarcheon | 2800 mya | ||||
| Paleoarchean | 3200 mya | ||||
| Eoarchean | 3600 mya | first simple single cell organisms | |||