Geological Time Scale

Eons	Era	Period	Epoch	Age/ Years Before Present	Life/ Major Events
	Cainozoic (From 65 million years to the present times)	Quaternary	Anthropocene	1945	Human led changes
			Holocene	1945-10000	Modern Man {1st Nuclear Bomb- Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA}
			Pleistocene	10000 - 2 million	Homo Sapiens
		Tertiary	Pliocene	2 - 5 million	Early Human ancestors
			Miocene	5 – 24 million	Ape: Flowering Plants and trees
			Oligocene	24 – 37 million	Anthropoid Ape
			Eocene	37 – 58 million	Rabbits and Hare
			Palaeocene	57 – 65 million	Small mammals: Rats – Mice
	Mesozoic (65-245 million)	Cretaceous		65 – 144 million	Extinction of Dinosaurs {Meteorite striking Yucatan Peninsula}
		Jurassic		144 – 208 million	Age of Dinosaurs
		Triassic		208 – 245 million	Frogs and turtles
	Palaeozoic (245-570 million)	Permian		245 - 286 million	Reptile dominate – replace amphibians
		Carboniferous		286 – 360 million	First Reptiles: Vertebrates: Coal beds
		Devonian		360 – 408 million	Amphibians
		Silurian		408 – 438 million	First trace of life on land: Plants
		Ordovician		438 – 505 million	First Fish
		Cambrian		505 – 570 million	No terrestrial life: Marine Invertebrate
Proterozoic	Pre Cambrian (570 Million – 4,800 Million)			570 – 2,500 Million	Soft- bodied arthropods
Archean				2,500 – 3,800 Million	Blue Green Algae: Unicellular bacteria
Hadean				3,800 – 4,800 million	Oceans and Continents form – Ocean and atmosphere are rich in CO2
Origin of Stars	5,000 – 13,700 Million			5,000 Million	Origin of the Sun
Supernova				12,000 Million	Origin of Universe
Big Bang				13,700 Million