Geological Time Scale

Geology

08.12.2000. Earth - Geological Time Scale
Homo Erectus learns how to use fire			Mammoth drawed on the Cave wall		Willendorf Venus
This geological time scale outlines the development of the earth and of life on the earth. The earth's earliest history appears at the bottom of the chart, and its most recent history is at the top.
Period or epoch and its length			Beginning (years ago)	Development of life on the earth
Cenozoic Era	Quaternary Period	Holocene Epoch 10 thousand years	10 thousand	Human beings hunted and tamed animal; developed agriculture; learned to use metals, coal, oil, gas and other resources, and put the power of wind and rivers to work.	Cultivated plants
	Quaternary Period	Pleistocene Epoch 2 million years	2 million	Modern human beings developed. Mammoths, woolly rhinos and other animals flourished but died out near the end of the epoch.	Human beings
	Tertiary Period	Pliocene Epoch 3 million years	5 million	Sea life became much like today's. Birds and many mammals became like modern kinds and spread around the world. Humanlike creatures appeared.	Horses
		Miocene Epoch 19 million years	24 million	Apes appeared in Asia and Africa. Other animals included bats, monkeys, whales, primitive bears and racoons. Flowering plants and trees resembled modern kinds.	Apes
		Oligocene Epoch 14 million years	38 million	Primitive apes appeared. Camels, cats, dogs, elephants, horses, rhinos and rodents developed. Huge rhinoceroslike animals disappeared near the end of the epoch.	Early horses
		Eocene Epoch 17 million years	55 million	Birds, amphibians, small reptiles and fish were plentiful. Primitive bats, camels, cats, horses, monkeys, rhinoceroses and whales appeared.	Grasses
		Paleocene Epoch 8 million years	63 million	Flowering plants appeared. Invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals were common.	Small mammals
Mesozoic Era		Cretaceous Period 75 million years	138 million	Flowering plants appeared. Invertebrates, fish and amphibians were plentiful. Dinosaurs with horns and armor became common. Dinosaurs died out at the end of the period.	Flowering plants
		Jurassic Period 67 million years	205 million	Cone-bearing trees were plentiful. Sea life included shelled squid. Dinosaurs reached their largest size. The first birds appeared. Mammals were small and primitive.	Birds
		Triassic Period 35 million years	240 million	Cone-bearing trees were plentiful. Many fish resembled modern kinds. Insects were plentiful. The first turtles, crocodiles and dinosaurs appeared, as did the first mammals.	Dinosaurs
Paleozoic Era		Permian Period 50 million years	290 million	The first seed plants - cone-bearing trees - appeared. Fish, amphibians and reptiles were plentiful.	Seed plants
	Carboniferous Period	Pennsylvanian Period 40 million years	330 million	Scale trees, ferns and giant scouring rushes were abundant. Fish and amphibians were plentiful. The first reptiles appeared. Giant insects lived in forests where coal later formed.	Reptiles
	Carboniferous Period	Mississippian Period 30 million years	360 million	Trilobites had nearly died out. Crustaceans, fish and amphibians were plentiful. Many coral reefs were formed.	Amphibians
		Devonian Period 50 million years	410 million	The first forests grew in swamps. Many kinds of fish, including sharks, armored fish and lungfish, swam in the sea and in fresh waters. The first amphibians and insects appeared.	Fish
		Silurian Period 25 million years	435 million	Spore-bearing land plants appeared. Trilobites and mollusks were common. Coral reefs formed.	Corals
		Ordovician Period 65 million years	500 million	Trilobites, corals and mollusks were common. Tiny animals called graptolites lived in branching colonies (groups).	Graptolites
		Cambrian Period 70 million years	570 million (?)	Fossils were plentiful for the first time. Shelled animals called trilobites and some mollusks were common in the sea. Jawless fish appeared.	Trilobites
Precambrian Time Almost 4 billion years (?)			4.5 billion (?)	Coral, jellyfish and worms lived in the sea about 1,100 million years ago. Bacteria lived as long as 3.5 billion years. Before that, no living things are known	Bacteria