GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE

Time Units of the Geologic Time Scale Development of

Eon Era Period Epoch Plants and Animals

Holocene
Quaternary 0.01
Earliest Homo sapiens
Pleistocene
1.6
Pliocene Earliest hominids
5.3
Phanerozoic

Miocene
Cenozoic

23.8
Tertiary Oligocene “Age of Mammals”
33.7
Eocene
55
Palaeocene Extinction of dinosaurs
65 and many other species
Cretaceous
Mesozoic

145 First flowering plants

Jurassic “Age First birds
208 of Dinosaurs dominant
Triassic Reptiles”
First mammals
248
Permian Extinction of trilobites and
286 many other marine animals
Carboniferous

Pennsylvanian “Age
of First reptiles
320 Amphibians” Large coal swamps
Mississippian Amphibians abundant
Palaeozoic

360
Devonian “Age First amphibians
410 of First insect fossils
Silurian Fishes Fishes dominant
438
Ordovician “Age First land plants
505 of First fishes
Cambrian Invertebrates” Trilobites dominant
545 First organisms with shells
“Soft-bodied
Vendian Abundant Ediacaran faunas
faunas”
650 First multicelled organisms
Archean Proterozoic

Collectively called
Precambrian
2500 comprises
about 87% of the
geological time scale First one-celled organisms
Age of oldest rocks
3800
Hadean
4600 Ma Origin of the earth