We have a text-only version of this page. Introduction to Geology | Navigating our Geology Wing (mya = million years ago) Phanerozoic Eon (544 mya to present) Cenozoic Era (65 mya to today) Quaternary (1.8 mya to today) Holocene (11, 000 years to today) Pleistocene (1.8 mya to 11, 000 yrs) Tertiary (65 to 1.8 mya) Pliocene (5 to 1.8 mya) Miocene (23 to 5 mya) Oligocene (38 to 23 mya) Eocene (54 to ...

The Paleozoic Era The Paleozoic is bracketed by two of the most important events in the history of animal life. At its beginning, multicelled animals underwent a dramatic explosion in diversity, and almost all living animal phyla appeared within a few millions of years. At the other end of the Paleozoic, the largest mass extinction in history wiped out approximately 90% of all marine animal ...

Introduction to the Mesozoic Era The Mesozoic is divided into three time periods: the Triassic (245-208 Million Years Ago), the Jurassic (208-146 Million Years Ago), and the Cretaceous (146-65 Million Years Ago). Mesozoic means middle animals , and is the time during which the world fauna changed drastically from that which had been seen in the Paleozoic. Dinosaurs, which are perhaps the most ...

Introduction to the Cenozoic 65 Million Years to the Present The Cenozoic is the most recent of the three major subdivisions of animal history. The other two are the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. The Cenozoic spans only about 65 million years, from the end of the Cretaceous and the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs to the present. The Cenozoic is sometimes called the Age of Mammals, because the ...

Introduction to the Proterozoic Era 2.5 billion to 544 million years ago The period of Earth's history that began 2.5 billion years ago and ended 544 million years ago is known as the Proterozoic. Many of the most exciting events in the history of the Earth and of life occurred during the Proterozoic -- stable continents first appeared and began to accrete, a long process taking about a billion ...

A lab specializing in the analysis and application of Pleistocene and Holocene insect remains for paleoenvironmental analyses. Located in the Department of Geosciences, North Dakota State University ...

In 1946, our view of ancient life was changed dramatically when the first convincing fossils of Precambrian animals were found in the Ediacara Hills of Australia. The unusual fossils, originally interpreted as jellyfish, strange worms, and frond-like corals, gave scientists their first look at the animals that populated the Precambrian seas. The blue areas on the map show rocks of Ediacaran age, ...

A quick background to the Pliocene Jonathan Adams, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory The Pliocene (5.4 - 2.4 million years ago) is the uppermost subdivision of the long Tertiary period which began 64 million years ago; it represents the final stages of a global cooling trend that led up to the Quaternary ice ages. Generally, the Pliocene world was rather warmer than ...

Biodiversity and Conservation: A Hypertext Book by Peter J. Bryant Chapter 2: THE AGE OF MAMMALS EXTINCTION OF THE DINOSAURS EVOLUTION OF MAMMALS GEOGRAPHIC CHANGES AND EVOLUTION EVOLUTION OF MAMMALS ON DIFFERENT CONTINENTS Mammalian evolution in the Northern hemisphere Mammalian evolution in South America Mammalian evolution in Australia EVOLUTION OF HUMANS HUMANS ENTER THE NEW WORLD Registered ...

The Fossil Company - The Palaeozoic Era. An illustrated geological time line for the Palaeozoic era, which includes the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods.