GEOLOGICAL TIME SCALE (mya: million years ago)
| Eon |
Era |
Sub-era |
Period |
Epoch |
mya |
First Appereances |
| Phanerozoic |
Cenozoic |
Quaternary |
|
Holocene |
.011 |
|
| Pleistocene |
1.64 |
| Tertiary |
Neogene |
Pliocene |
5.2 |
hominids |
| Miocene |
23 |
|
| Paleogene |
Eocene |
35 |
| Oligocene |
56 |
grasses |
| Paleocene |
65 |
primates |
| Mesozoic |
|
Cretaceous |
|
145 |
placental mammals |
| Jurassic |
|
208 |
birds and bony fishes |
| Triassic |
|
245 |
early mammals and dinousaurs |
| Paleozoic |
|
Permian |
|
290 |
|
| Missisippian |
|
323 |
conifers and winged insects |
| Pennsylvanian |
|
362 |
|
| Devonian |
|
408 |
sharks |
| Silurian |
|
439 |
land plants |
| Ordovician |
|
510 |
ammonoids |
| Cambrian |
|
570 |
vertebrates, trilobites and many invertebrate groups |
| Pre- Cambrian |
Age of the earth: 4.5 billion years |
| |
mya shows the oldest boundary
of the Epoch or Period |
|