The Geological Time Scale

Study Guide for the Geologic Time Scale
Go to posted classwork
Please read pages 345-346.
Please answer Class Questions.
Please read pages 346-359.
Please answer Class Questions.

Special Features
• Ashfall Rhino Barn. Once the page is loaded click on video.
• Tapestry of Time and Terraine for Nebraska
• Lancaster County Fossils Click on Lancaster County Map to learn about time periods.
• Nebraska Fossil Fish
• Time Line
• Pictorial Time Line

Vocabulary: In this unit the emphasis in based on different time spans.
This includes the theory of evolution (p. 347)

(Click on an underlined word to hear it spoken)

• Precambrian Time Very little fossil evidence.
  
  • shields (rock formations)
    
  • stromatolites (common fossil from this time).
    
• Paleozoic Era
  
  • Cambrian Period
    Marine life: invertebrate (trilobite and brachiopod)
    
  • Ordovician Period
    Marine life: vertebrates-ostracoderm
    
  • Silurian Period
    Marine life: eurypterid
    
  • Devonian Period
    Age of fishes; lungfish-beginning of amphibians
    Land plants such as horsetails, ferns and cone bearing plants.
    
  • Carboniferous Period “carbon bearing” source of coal.
    Amphibians and fish
    Forests and swamps common
    Reptiles make appearance as true land animals.
    
  • Permian Period
    End of Paleozoic era and mass extinction of many species.
    Movement of tectonic plates forms Pangaea resulting in major climate changes.
    
• Mesozoic Era
  
  • Triassic Period “Age of Reptiles”
    Appearance of dinosaurs.
    Earliest mammals appear (rodent-like)
    
  • Jurassic Period
    Dinosaurs become dominant life-form. (Jurassic Park)
    Archaeopteryx appears as true bird.
    
  • Cretaceous Period
    Flowering plants (angiosperms) appear. (Dinosaurs continue)
    Mass extinction (including dinosaurs) possibly from meteorite-impact
    
• Cenozoic Era (Mammals dominate. Dramatic changes in climate occur producing ice ages.)
  
  • Tertiary Period (Time before the last ice age.)
    
    • Paleocene Epoch: Many new species of mammals evolved.
      
    • Eocene Epoch: Fossil primates, horse, bat and whale. Worldwide temp 4° C.
      
    • Quaternary Period (Time involving the last ice age to the present.)
      
    • Oligocene Epoch: Very dry period favored grasses and hardwood trees.
      
    • Miocene Epoch: Golden Age of Mammals Large herds of animals.
      
    • Pliocene Epoch: bear, cat and dog families became fully evolved.
      Land bridges produce animal migration.
      
    • Pleistocene Epoch: Glaciation Period Not all mammals could endure.
      
    • Holocene Epoch: Modern humans develop agriculture and tools.

Section 18.1
• Fill-In Notes 18.1
• Notes 18.1
• Chapter 18 Video Part 1
• Chapter 18 Video Part 2

This Page was last update: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 at 9:30:14 AM
This page was originally posted: 7/22/04; 10:25:22 AM.
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