Period + Age
MYA = Million Years Ago
Period: Precambrian earliest period
- 1st organisms - Single celled (oxygen present)
- Later - Multi-celled organisms
Period: Cambrian 540mya
- Lots of different organisms
- Earliest animals with backbone
- Lots of carbon dioxide
Period: Ordovician 490mya
- Lots of animals without skeletons
- Early shells fish (trilobites, nautilus, sea stars, fish)
- 1st green plants (fungi, moss)
- End of Ice Age
Period: Silurian 443mya
1st Advanced plants
Jawed fish with amour
More shellfish
Period: Devonian
- 1st Ferns
- 1st fir trees with seeds
- 1st wingless insects
- 1st amphibians
- Some animals from earlier periods die out
- Moist climate cool
Period: Carboniferous 354mya
- 1st "Coal forest"
- Coal for over millions of years
- Early sharks and large trees
- 1st reptiles+Vertebrates
- Trilobites disappearance
- Glaciers Form
- Winged insects
Period: Permian 290mya
- Land masses have formed
- Glaciers disappear meaning the weather is warmer
- Lots of Reptiles
- 1st cone bearing trees
- Beetles and Flies appear
- Lots of life in the Oceans
- 251mya 95% life ended - Meaning they all died out
Period: Triassic 248mya
- Dinosaurs appear
- First mammals and crocodile appear
- Modern corals and fish start to appear
Period: Jurassic 206mya
- Lots of different dinosaurs
- Ferns and cone bearing plants
- Mammals common but small
- First birds and lizards
-Land mass, Pangaea breaks up into Gondwanaland and Laurasia
- High Carbon Dioxide levels
Period: Cretaceous 144mya
- Lots of new dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurs
- New types of insects
- Flowering plants appear and become plentiful
- Modern Crocodiles and Sharks
- Early birds appear
- Gondwanaland broke up
- Rocky Mountains appear
- Carbon Dioxide similar to today
Period: Paleogene 65-23mya
- Modern plants
- Lots of different mammals
- Dinosaurs extinct
- Primitive Whales
- First grasses
- Rapid changes in mammals
- Climate cools down
- Ice age begins and ends during this period
Period: Neogene 23- 5.3mya
- Modern climate
- Modern mammals and birds
- Horses evolve from dog like animals
- Lots of grasses
- First Apes
- Southern Alps of New Zealand appear
Period: Quaternary 1.8mya (the present)
- Anatomically modern humans
- Human stone age culture
- Ice age comes and goes
- Sahara forms from grasslands
- Humans begin agriculture
- Stone age - Bronze age 3300BC - Iron age 1120 BC- Industrial revoloution leads to rise in Carbon Dioxide levels
- 251mya 95% life ended - Meaning they all died out
Period: Triassic 248mya
- Dinosaurs appear
- First mammals and crocodile appear
- Modern corals and fish start to appear
Period: Jurassic 206mya
- Lots of different dinosaurs
- Ferns and cone bearing plants
- Mammals common but small
- First birds and lizards
-Land mass, Pangaea breaks up into Gondwanaland and Laurasia
- High Carbon Dioxide levels
Period: Cretaceous 144mya
- Lots of new dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurs
- New types of insects
- Flowering plants appear and become plentiful
- Modern Crocodiles and Sharks
- Early birds appear
- Gondwanaland broke up
- Rocky Mountains appear
- Carbon Dioxide similar to today
Period: Paleogene 65-23mya
- Modern plants
- Lots of different mammals
- Dinosaurs extinct
- Primitive Whales
- First grasses
- Rapid changes in mammals
- Climate cools down
- Ice age begins and ends during this period
Period: Neogene 23- 5.3mya
- Modern climate
- Modern mammals and birds
- Horses evolve from dog like animals
- Lots of grasses
- First Apes
- Southern Alps of New Zealand appear
Period: Quaternary 1.8mya (the present)
- Anatomically modern humans
- Human stone age culture
- Ice age comes and goes
- Sahara forms from grasslands
- Humans begin agriculture
- Stone age - Bronze age 3300BC - Iron age 1120 BC- Industrial revoloution leads to rise in Carbon Dioxide levels