Geologic Time Scale
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Important Events in
Earth History
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Cenozoic Era
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Recent (0.01My)
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Modern Man spreads worldwide
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Neogene
(23.8 My)
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Many mammals vanish
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Paleogene
(65 My)
|
Modern types of flowering plants appear
Spread and diversification of mammals
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Mesozoic Era
Age of Reptiles
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Cretaceous
Upper (98 My)
Lower (144 My)
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Dinosaurs and many organisms become extinct.
Flowering plants appear
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Jurassic
Upper (159 My)
Middle (180 My)
Lower (205 My)
|
First birds; dinosaurs increasingly abundant
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Triassic
Upper (227 My)
Lower (251 My)
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First dinosaurs; first mammals
Abundant cycads and conifers
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Paleozoic Era
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Permian
(295 My)
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Extinction of many animals
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Carboniferous
(362 My)
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First reptiles; great coal forests; first conifers; first cycads
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Devonian
(418 My)
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First amphibians and insects; fishes abundant
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Silurian
(439 My)
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First land life (plants and invertebrates)
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Ordovician
(490 My)
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First tabulate and rugose corals;
first bryozoa
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Cambrian
(543 My)
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First record of marine life including trilobites and first vertebrates
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Precambrian Era
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First living things perhaps 3.6 billion years ago.
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