| Eras | Periods | Epochs | Aquatic Life | Terrestrial Life |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| With approximate starting dates in millions of years ago in parentheses. Geologic features in green | ||||
| Cenozoic (65) The "Age of Mammals" |
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| Quaternary (1.8) | Recent | Humans in the new world | ||
| Pleistocene | Periodic glaciation | First humans | ||
| Continental drift continues | ||||
| Tertiary (65) | Pliocene | All modern groups present | Hominids and pongids | |
| Miocene | Monkeys and ancestors of apes | |||
| Oligocene | Adaptive radiation of birds | |||
| Eocene | Modern mammals and herbaceous angiosperms | |||
| Paleocene | ||||
| Mesozoic (248) "The Age of Reptiles" | Cretaceous (144) | Still attached: N. America & N. Europe; Australia & Antarctica | ||
| Modern bony fishes | Extinction of dinosaurs, pterosaurs | |||
| Extinction of ammonites, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs | Rise of woody angiosperms, snakes | |||
| Africa & S. America begin to drift apart | ||||
| Jurassic (213) | Plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs abundant | Dinosaurs dominant; first mammals | ||
| Ammonites again abundant | First lizards; Archaeopteryx | |||
| Skates, rays, and bony fishes abundant | Insects abundant | |||
| First angiosperms | ||||
| Pangaea splits into Laurasia and Gondwana | ||||
| Triassic (248) | First plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs | Adaptive radiation of reptiles: thecodonts, therapsids, turtles, crocodiles, first dinosaurs | ||
| Ammonites abundant at first | ||||
| Rise of bony fishes | ||||
| Paleozoic (590) | Permian (286) | Appalachian Mts. formed; periodic glaciation and arid climate | ||
| Extinction of trilobites, placoderms | Reptiles abundant: cotylosaurs, pelycosaurs. Cycads, conifers, ginkgos | |||
| Pennsylvanian (320) | Warm, humid climate Together the Pennsylvanian and Mississippian make up the "Carboniferous"; also called the "Age of Amphibians" |
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| Ammonites, bony fishes | First reptiles Coal swamps | |||
| Mississippian (360) | Adaptive radiation of sharks | Forests of lycopsids, sphenopsids, and seed ferns Amphibians abundant Land snails | ||
| Periodic aridity | ||||
| Devonian (408) The "Age of Fishes" | Placoderms, cartilaginous and bony fishes. Ammonites, nautiloids | Ferns, lycopsids, and sphenopsids First gymnosperms and bryophytes First insects First amphibians | ||
| Extensive inland seas | ||||
| Adaptive radiation of ostracoderms, eurypterids | First land plants, arachnids (scorpions) | |||
| Silurian (438) | Mild climate; inland seas | Nautiloids, Pilina, other mollusks | None | |
| Ordovician (505) | Mild climate, inland seas | Trilobites abundant First jawless vertebrates Trilobites dominant | None | |
| Cambrian (590) | First eurypterids, crustaceans Mollusks, echinoderms Sponges, cnidarians, annelids Tunicates | None | ||
| Periodic glaciation | ||||
| Proterozoic (2500) Archean (4500) | Fossils rare but many protistan and invertebrate phyla toward the end | None | ||
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