The Hadean

It is the unofficial geological period of time that lies just before the Archean time period.
The Hadean began with the formation of the Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago (Ga)
and ended about 3.8 Ga; the latter date varies according to different sources. Hadean is
derived from Hades, Greek for underworld, referring to the hellish conditions on the
planet at the time. The term was coined in 1972 by geologist Preston Cloud. The period
was later classified as the Priscoan period by W. Brian Harland — however older texts
typically referred to it as the Pre-Archean age, or eon.

There are very few geological traces of this period remaining on the planet and, hence,
there are no official subdivisions. However, the Lunar geologic timescale embraces
several major divisions relating to the Hadean and so these are sometimes used in an
informal sense to refer to the same periods of time on Earth. These Lunar divisions are:
Pre-Nectarian (from the formation of the Moon’s crust up to 3.92 Ga; and Nectarian
(ranging up to 3.85 Ga).

The journal Solid Earth in 2010 proposed the addition of two more ages: the Chaotian
and Prenephelean Eons, and splitting the Hadean into three eras with two time periods
in each. Under this classification, the Paleohadean era would consist of the
Hephaestean (4.5 – 4.4 Ga) and the Jacobian (4.4 – 4.3 Ga); the Mesohadean would
be divided in the Canadian (4.3 – 4.2 Ga) and the Procrustean (4.2 – 4.1 Ga); and the
Neohadean would be divided into the Acastan (4.1 – 4.0 Ga) and the Promethean (4.0 –
3.9 Ga).

Archean
Geologic time period
The Archean Eon is one of the four geologic eons of Earth history, occurring 4,000 to 2,500 million
years ago. During the Archean, the Earth's crust had cooled enough to allow the formation of
continents and life began its development. 

Proterozoic Eon, the younger of the two divisions

of Precambrian time, the older being the Archean Eon. The Proterozoic
Eon extended from 2.5 billion to 541 million years ago and is often
divided into the Paleoproterozoic (2.5 billion to 1.6 billion years ago), the
Mesoproterozoic (1.6 billion to 1 billion years ago), and the
Neoproterozoic (1 billion to 541 million years ago) eras. Proterozoic
rocks have been identified on all the continents and
often constitute important sources of metallic ores, notably
of iron, gold, copper, uranium, and nickel. During the Proterozoic,
the atmosphere and oceans changed significantly. Proterozoic rocks
contain many definite traces of primitive life-forms—the fossil remains
of bacteria and blue-green algae, as well as of the first oxygen-
dependent animals, the Ediacara fauna.

 The Paleoproterozoic is the first of three subdivisions of the

Proterozoic Eon (occurring from 2.5 billion to 1.6 billion years ago (Ga).
This period is marked by the first stabilization of the continents, and also
when cyanobacteria evolved.
 The Mesoproterozoic Era is a geologic era within the
Proterozoic Eon, being the second of three periods, and falls in between
the Paleoproterozoic and the Neoproterozoic eras. It occurred between
1600-1000 million years ago (Ma). The Mesoproterozoic is the first period of
Earth’s history with a respectable geological record. The continental
masses of the Mesoproterozoic are more or less the same ones that are
with us today. This is also the period when the formation of the Rodinia
supercontinent occurred, as well as the breakup of the Nuna (Columbia)
supercontinent.

The period is marked by further development of continental plates and plate

tectonics. At the end of this era, the continental plates that had developed
were more or less the same as what we have today. This period is also known
for the first evidence of large-scale mountain building, namely with the
Grenville Orogeny, for which extensive evidence still survives in the geologic
record.

The Mesoproterozoic is also the most prolific time for Stromatolites, as

they began to decline during the Neoproterozoic. Perhaps the greatest
evidence recorded from the Mesoproterozoic period is the first known
presence of sexual reproduction, which greatly increased the complexity of
life to come. It was also the start of development of communal living
among organisms, the multicellular organisms.

 The Neoproterozoic era was arguably the most

revolutionary in Earth history. Extending from 1000 to 541 million
years ago, it stands at the intersection of the two great tracts of
evolutionary time: on the one side, some three billion years of
pervasively microbial ‘Precambrian’ life, and on the other the modern
‘Phanerozoic’ biosphere with its extraordinary diversity of large
 multicellular organisms. The disturbance doesn’t stop here,
however: over this same stretch of time the planet itself was in the
throes of change. Tectonically, it saw major super-continental
reconfigurations, climatically its deepest ever glacial freeze, and
geochemically some of the most anomalous perturbations on record.

Paleozoic Era, also spelled Palaeozoic, major interval of

geologic time that began 541 million years ago with the Cambrian explosion, an
extraordinary diversification of marine animals, and ended about 252 million
years ago with the end-Permian extinction, the greatest extinction event in Earth
history. The major divisions of the Paleozoic Era, from oldest to youngest, are the
Cambrian (541 million to 485.4 million years ago), Ordovician (485.4 million to
443.8 million years ago), Silurian (443.8 million to 419.2 million years ago),
Devonian (419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago), Carboniferous (358.9 million
to 298.9 million years ago), and Permian (298.9 million to 252.2 million years ago)
periods. The Paleozoic takes its name from the Greek word for ancient life.