Life On Earth

A History of
Catastrophic
Changes that
Drive
Life’s
Progression
Geologic
Time
Scale
Geologic Time Scale is a
road Map of Earth’s Major
changes based on the
accumulated and still
continuing studies done by
Geologist around the
world to reconstruct what
happened to Earth in the
past
PALEONTOLOGY, a
branch of geology that
deals with the study of
ancient life forms and
their environments.

• By examining the
fossil and their field of
occurrences,
paleontologists are
able to determine the
ages of these organic
Geochronology-
is a branch of
geology that is
dedicated to the
study and
determination of
ages of rocks
and the ages of
the processes
Paleontological Dating.
-this is how Geologists
and Paleontologists
know the age of fossils.
-the age of fossil is the
Same with the age of the
rock where it is embedded.
Example: when the Dinosaurs
started to evolve, how they
lived, what kind of habitat
they preferred to live in and
why they became extinct 65
Types of Paleontological
Dating:
Relative Dating - the
determination of the ages of
the rocks based on their
depositional sequencing.
Absolute Dating- this
method provides highly
accurate numerical ages of
the rocks.
Radiometric Dating- uses
chemical decomposition of
Earth History is defined by two domains:
1.) The ages of Rocks (time).
2.) The Rock units themselves
(elements of space).
The rock units provide stories of the
past, because they contain or have
preserved the imprints of the factors and
processes that had acted on them when
they were being formed or deposited.
The ages provide the time
lines of the past events and
are represented by
decreasing time scales from
Eons to Era to Periods to
Epochs.
LET’S BEGIN!!!

We know that Earth

was formed at about
4.6 billion years
ago. The
development of the
Earth’s core,
mantle, crust and
primitive
atmosphere and
The first occurrence of the
Cyanobacteria at about 3.8
billion years ago marked the
beginning of life on Earth.
It was followed by more than 3
billion years of organic solitude or
infertile evolution as the
Cyanobacteria ruled supreme
through those billions of years
together with Planktons and
multi-celled algae.
In other words, evolution
chilled out that long. Fossils
are extremely rare in the rock
record of the Precambrian
period.
The Precambrian is the
earliest part of Earth's history,
set before the current
Phanerozoic Eon. The
Precambrian is so named
because it preceded the
Cambrian, the first period of
the Phanerozoic eon, which is
CAMBRIAN PERIOD
• 540 million years ago
• Marine life started to evolved
• Cambrian explosion-”series of
firsts”

ORDOVICIAN PERIOD
• First occurrence of fishes

SILURIAN PERIOD
• First terrestrial plants
DEVONIAN PERIOD
• Fishes became abundant
• Paved the pathway for the
evolution of the amphibians
CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD
• The amphibians became
abundant
• The scale trees and see ferns
began to evolve on land.
• The first reptiles and insects
appeared during the latter
part of this period
• Formation of coal forest and
conifers.
PERMIAN PERIOD
• Recorded the first mass
extinction
TRIASSIC PERIOD
• Conifers became abundant in
this period
• Dinosaurs started to exist
JURASSIC PERIOD
• Dinosaurs became abundant
and diversified
• Occurrence of first birds and
mammals
CRETACEOUS PERIOD
• Dinosaurs wiped out
(BOLIDE)
• Flowering plants started to
grow
PALEOGENE AND NEOGENE
PERIOD
• Rise and diversification of
mammals
PLEISTOCENE EPOCH
• The hominids or
precursors of the modern
man started to evolve to
become the most
complex and most
intelligent life form on
earth- the MAN.