Earth Science 11

Quarter 2

Subdivisions of Geologic Time

Introductory Message
For the facilitator:

Welcome to the Earth Science Self-Learning Module 15 on Subdivisions of

Geologic Time

This Self-Learning Module was collaboratively designed, developed and

reviewed by educators from the Schools Division Office of Pasig City headed by its
Officer-in-Charge Schools Division Superintendent, Ma. Evalou Concepcion A.
Agustin, in partnership with the City Government of Pasig through its mayor,
Honorable Victor Ma. Regis N. Sotto. The writers utilized the standards set by the K
to 12 Curriculum using the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELC) in
developing this instructional resource.

This learning material hopes to engage the learners in guided and independent
learning activities at their own pace and time. Further, this also aims to help learners
acquire the needed 21st century skills especially the 5 Cs, namely: Communication,
Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Character while taking into
consideration their needs and circumstances.

In addition to the material in the main text, you will also see this box in the
body of the module:

Notes to the Teacher

This contains helpful tips or strategies that
will help you in guiding the learners.

As a facilitator you are expected to orient the learners on how to use this
module. You also need to keep track of the learners' progress while allowing them to
manage their own learning. Moreover, you are expected to encourage and assist the
learners as they do the tasks included in the module.
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. acquire familiarity with the geologic time scale;
2. explain how relative and absolute dating were used to determine the
subdivisions of geologic time; and
3. show the contributions of different personalities in the establishment
of the geologic time scale.

RECAP
The history of the Earth is recorded in its rocks. Absolute dating involves the
determination of numerical ages while relative dating simply put them in chronologic
order.
The principles of original horizontality, superposition, and cross-cutting
relationships allow events to be ordered at a single location. However, they do not
reveal the relative ages of rocks preserved in two different areas. In this case, fossils
can be useful tools for understanding the relative ages of rocks. Each fossil species
reflects a unique period of time in Earth's history.
Using a variety of methods, geologists are able to determine the age of geological
materials to answer the question: "how old is this fossil?" Relative dating methods
are used to describe a sequence of events. These methods use the principles of
stratigraphy to place events recorded in rocks from oldest to youngest. Absolute
dating methods determine how much time has passed since rocks formed by
measuring the radioactive decay of isotopes or the effects of radiation on the crystal
structure of minerals.
A fossil can be studied to determine what kind of organism it represents, how the
organism lived, and how it was preserved. However, by itself a fossil has little
meaning unless it is placed within some context. The age of the fossil must be
determined so it can be compared to other fossil species from the same time period.
Understanding the ages of related fossil species helps scientists piece together the
evolutionary history of a group of organisms.

Absolute Dating
• Helps us determine the age of the earth
• Helps us determine when specific events in the history of the earth happened
(ex. Extinction of the dinosaurs)
Relative Dating
• Can help us estimate the time span between major earthquakes, storms,
tsunamis etc.
• Can help us determine the order that life forms developed on earth
 LESSON
Geologic Time Scale
How do we know when the dinosaurs died out? How do we know when birds
first appeared on Earth or when humans evolved? What about the beginning of life
itself? How was our planet formed and populated by living things over time?
The history of the Earth is recorded in its rocks. Ancient life is preserved in its
fossils, volcanism in its minerals, and sequence in its beds. So much has happened
in Earth that the advent of man seemed like a few seconds in a day’s work. With so
much time during its formation (the Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old;
basically, the same as the solar system), the Earth’s history is compartmentalized to
give a sense of order. This order is what we see as the geologic time scale.

The Geologic Time Scale (GTS) is a hierarchical set of divisions describing geologic
time. Units of time include the Eon, Era, Period, Epoch, and Age. Divisions in the
GTS is determined by varying events such as extinction, magnetic pole reversals,
start of a particular species of organisms, etc. The setting of boundaries for each
division is based on worldwide-applicable evidences and is governed by the
International Commission on Stratigraphy.

Origins of a Geologic Time Scale

The first people who needed to understand the geological relationships of different
rock units were miners. Mining had been of commercial interest since at least the
days of the Romans, but it wasn't until the 1500s and 1600s that these efforts
produced an interest in local rock relationships.

One of the first scientists to understand geologic time was James Hutton. In the late
1700s, he traveled around Great Britain and studied sedimentary rocks and their
fossils. He believed that the same processes that work on Earth today formed the
rocks and fossils from the past. He knew that these processes take a very long time,
so the rocks must have formed over millions of years. Before Hutton, most people
believed the Earth was only several thousand years old. His work helped us
understand that the laws of nature never change and that the Earth is very old. He
is sometimes called the "father of geology".

By noting the relationships of different rock units, Nicolaus Steno in 1669 described
two basic geologic principles. The first stated that sedimentary rocks are laid down
in a horizontal manner, and the second stated that younger rock units were deposited
on top of older rock units. To envision this latter principle, think of the layers of paint
on a wall. The oldest layer was put on first and is at the bottom, while the newest
layer is at the top. An additional concept was introduced by James Hutton in 1795,
and later emphasized by Charles Lyell in the early 1800s. This was the idea that
natural geologic processes were uniform in frequency and magnitude throughout
time, an idea known as the "principle of uniformitarianism."
Horizontal rock layers are beautifully exhibited at the Painted Hills Unit of John Day Fossil Beds
National Monument in Oregon and at Cedar Breaks National Park in Utah.
Steno's principles allowed workers in the 1600s and early 1700s to begin to recognize
rock successions. However, because rocks were locally described by color, texture,
or even smell, comparisons between rock sequences of different areas were often not
possible. Fossils provided the opportunity for workers to correlate between
geographically distinct areas. This contribution was possible because fossils are
found over wide regions of the Earth's crust.

For the next major contribution to the geologic time scale we turn to William Smith,
a surveyor, canal builder, and amateur geologist from England. In 1815 Smith
produced a geologic map of England in which he successfully demonstrated the
validity of the principle of faunal succession. This principle simply stated that fossils
are found in rocks in a very definite order. This principle led others that followed to
use fossils to define increments within a relative time scale.

Relative and Absolute Age Dating of Rocks

The clues in rocks help scientists put together a picture of how places on Earth have
changed. Scientists noticed in the 1700s and 1800s that similar layers of
sedimentary rocks all over the world contain similar fossils. They used relative
dating to order the rock layers from oldest to youngest. In the process of relative
dating, scientists do not determine the exact age of a fossil but do learn which ones
are older or younger than others. They saw that the fossils in older rocks are different
from the fossils in younger rocks. For example, older rock layers contain only reptile
fossils, but younger rock layers may also contain mammal fossils.
Scientists divided Earth's history into several chunks of time when the fossils showed
similar things living on the Earth. They gave each chunk of time a name to help them
keep track of how Earth has changed. For example, one chunk of time when many
dinosaurs lived is called the Jurassic. We find fossils of Earth's first green plants
from the chunk of time named the Ordovician. Many of the scientists who first
assigned names to times in Earth's history were from Europe. As a result, many of
the names they used came from towns or other local places where they studied in
Europe.
Ordering rock layers from oldest to youngest was a first step in creating the geologic
time scale. It showed the order in which life on Earth changed. It also showed us
how certain areas changed over time in regard to climate or type of environment.
However, the early geologic time scale only showed the order of events. It did not
show the actual years that events happened. With the discovery of radioactivity in
the late 1800s, scientists were able to measure the exact age in years of different
rocks. Measuring the amounts of radioactive elements in rocks let scientists use
absolute dating to give ages to each chunk of time on the geologic time scale. For
example, they are now able to state that the Jurassic began about 200 million years
ago and that it lasted for about 55 million years.
Divisions of the Geologic Time Scales
The geologic history of the Earth is broken up into hierarchical chunks of time. From
largest to smallest, this hierarchy includes eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages. All
of these are displayed in the portion of the geologic time scale shown below .

Eon Era Period Epoch Age

Phanerozoic Cenozoic Paleogene Oligocene Chattian
Rupelian
The Phanerozoic Eon represents the
time during which the majority of
macroscopic organisms — algae, fungi,
plants and animals — lived. When first
proposed as a division of geologic time,
the beginning of the Phanerozoic (542.0
million years ago) was thought to coincide
with the beginning of life. In reality, this
eon coincides with the appearance of
animals that evolved external skeletons,
like shells, and the somewhat later
animals that formed internal skeletons,
such as the bony elements of vertebrates.
The time before the Phanerozoic is
usually referred to as the Precambrian
and is usually divided into the three eons
shown.

The Phanerozoic is subdivided into three

major divisions: The Cenozoic,
Mesozoic, and Paleozoic Eras. The
"zoic" suffix comes from the root "zoo,"
which means animal. This is the same
root as in the words zoology and
zoological park (or zoo). "Cen-" means
recent, "Meso-" means middle, and
"Paleo-" means ancient. These divisions
reflect major changes in the composition
of ancient faunas, each era being
recognized by its domination by a
particular group of animals. The
Cenozoic has sometimes been called the
"Age of Mammals,", it goes up until now.
Large mammals evolved, large reptiles
went extinct, and the continents moved
apart.
Mammals evolved into what we see alive
today. A lot of species become extinct
from ice ages. Humans evolved and took
over the world. The Mesozoic the "Age of
Dinosaurs," – Jurassic Park, T-Rex.
Dinosaurs and first mammals evolved.
Some reptiles evolved into small
mammals – give birth to live young, warm blooded, have body hair for warmth, can
be a lot more active and hunt at night as
well as daytime. Modern birds probably (n.d.). Retrieved August 27, 2020, from
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/histgeosc
evolved from dinosaurs with feathers.
The Paleozoic is bracketed by two of the
most important events in the history of animal life. At its beginning, multicell animals
underwent a dramatic "explosion" in diversity, and almost all living animal phyla
appeared within a few millions of years. At the other end of the Paleozoic, the largest
mass extinction in history wiped out approximately 90% of all marine animal species.
The causes of both these events are still not fully understood and the subject of much
research and controversy. Roughly halfway in between, animals, fungi, and plants
colonized the land, the insects took to the air, and the limestone. The Devonian, part
of the Paleozoic era, is otherwise known as the Age of Fishes, as it spawned a
remarkable variety of fish. The most formidable of them were the armored
placoderms, a group that first appeared during the Silurian with powerful jaws lined
with bladelike plates that acted as teeth. Early placoderms fed on mollusks and other
invertebrates, but later species developed into ferocious, fish-slicing monsters
measuring up to 33 feet (10 meters) long. Other types of bone-plated fish that lacked
jaws developed a range of bizarre
forms. Fossil specimens include species with horseshoe-shaped heads and others
that looked like rounded shields.

The Precambrian Era. The name means: "before the Cambrian period." This
old, but still common term was originally used to refer to the whole period of Earth's
history before the formation of the oldest rocks with recognizable fossils in them. In
the last few decades, however, geologists have found that there are some hard-
todiscern fossils in some Precambrian rocks, so this period is now also known as the
Cryptozoic or "obscure life" Eon (from the words "crypt" = "hidden," and "zoon" =
"life").
The Precambrian covers almost 90% of the entire history of the Earth. It has been
divided into three eras: The Hadean, the Archean and the Proterozoic. The
Precambrian Era comprises all of geologic time prior to 600 million years ago. The
Precambrian was originally defined as the era that predated the emergence of life in
the Cambrian Period. It is now known, however, that life on Earth began by the early
Archean and that fossilized organisms became more and more abundant throughout
Precambrian time. The two major subdivisions of the last part of the Precambrian are
the Archean (oldest) and the Proterozoic. Rocks younger than 600 Ma are considered
part of the Phanerozoic.

ACTIVITIES
Activity 1
Answer the following question briefly.

1. Why did not early geologic time scales include the number of years that
happened in the past?
2. Explain why the fossil record is inevitably incomplete, especially for organisms
that lived more than 600 million years ago.
3. Can scientists use the same principles they used to study Earth’s history to
also study the history of other planets? Explain why or why not.
Activity 2
Cryptogram
Each of the blanks has a number underneath it. Fill in the letters that
correspond to the numbers below the blanks to solve the phrase .

Geological Time Scale

Activity 3

Crossword Puzzle
Read the clues below and fill in the correct answer.

Divisions of the Geologic Time Scales

Across
2. means recent
4. has sometimes been called the Age of Mammals
5. means middle
7. a major division of geological time
8. obscure life
11. Age of Fishes
Down
1. represents the time during which the majority of macroscopic organisms
3. The name means: "before the Cambrian period
6. Age of Dinosaurs
9. means ancient
10. means animal

WRAP-UP

• The Earth is very old, and the study of Earth's past requires us to think about
times that were millions or even billions of years ago. Scientists use the geologic
time scale to illustrate the order in which events on Earth have happened.
• The geologic time scale was developed after scientists observed changes in the
fossils going from oldest to youngest sedimentary rocks. They used relative dating
to divide Earth's past in several chunks of time when similar organisms were on
Earth.
• Later, scientists used absolute dating to determine the actual number of years
ago that events happened. The geologic time scale is divided into eons, eras,
periods, epochs and age.

Question 1: Why are sedimentary rocks more useful than metamorphic or igneous
rocks in establishing the relative ages of rock?

Question 2: Which is likely to be more frequently found in rocks: fossils of very old
sea creatures or very old land creatures?

VALUING
How many years is a "long time"? We often express time in hours or days, and 20 or
30 years certainly feels like a long time. Imagine if you needed to think about one
million, 100 million, or even several billion years. These exceptional lengths of time
seem unbelievable, but they are exactly the spans of times that scientists use to
describe the Earth.
The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Have places like the Grand Canyon and the
Mississippi River been around for all of those years, or were they formed more
recently? When did the giant Rocky Mountains form and when did dinosaurs walk
the Earth? To answer these questions, you have to think about times that were
millions or billions of years ago.
Historical geologists are scientists who study the Earth's past. They study clues left
on the Earth to learn two main things: the order in which events happened on Earth,
and how long it took for those events to happen. For example, they have learned that
the Mississippi River formed many millions of years after the Grand Canyon began
forming. They have also concluded that dinosaurs lived on the Earth for about 200
million years.
Scientists have put together the geologic time scale to describe the order and
duration of major events on Earth for the last 4 1⁄2 billion years. Some examples of
events listed on the geologic time scale include the first appearance of plant life on
Earth, the first appearance of animals on Earth, the formation of Earth's mountains,
and the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Question 1: How did life on Earth change from one period of geologic time to the
next?

Question 2: Suppose you are hiking in the mountains of Utah and find a fossil of an
animal that lived on the ocean floor. You learn that the rock that holds the fossil is
from the Mississippian period. What was the environment like during the
Mississippian in Utah?

POSTTEST
Choose the letter of the best answer. Write the chosen letter on a separate sheet
of paper.
1. Which of the following is the record of Geologic time scale?
a. Old geologists
b. Sweet geology music
c. A list of every living thing ever
d. The known history of rocks and fossils

2. How old do paleontologists believe the Earth is?

a. 2020 years old b. 3.6 billion years old
c. 4.6 billion years old d. 4.6 million years old

3. Paleozoic, Mesozoic & Cenozoic are all----

a. Eons b. Epochs c. Eras d. Periods

4. Which is the most recent era of time- the one that we are currently in?
a. Cenozoic b. Mesozoic c. Paleozoic d. Precambrian

5. Describe how geologists separate time periods.

a. By counting the life of living things.
b. By looking at the Relative Time of a Fossil.
c. By counting the years a fossil has been preserved.
d. By special events that have happened in that period.