Earth History

• Overviews, timelines, summaries of earth history
• Background information on geologic age dating
• Background information on plate tectonics and continent positions through time
• Background information on how fossils form
• Precambrian Time and origin of life on Earth
• Cambrian Period
• Early Paleozoic—Rise of fish
• Late Ordovician—Mass extinction
• Ordovician/Silurian Period—Oldest vascular land plants
• Silurian/Devonian Period—Oldest land animals: millipedes, wingless insects, and other arthropods
• Devonian Period—Lobefins, lungfish, amphibians, and tetrapod evolution
• Late Devonian—Mass extinction
• Carboniferous Period (Mississippian and Pennsylvanian)—Rise of the reptiles
• Permian Period—The rise of mammal-like reptiles
• End of Permian Extinction—The largest extinction of all time
• Triassic Period—Therapsids, cynodonts, and the first mammals
• Triassic Period—Archosaurs and thecodonts
• Triassic Period--Dinosaur origins and oldest dinosaurs
• Triassic Period—Coelophysis, and early dinosaurs
• End-Triassic extinction—Opening the door for dinosaurs
• Jurassic Period—Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation
• Jurassic Period—Archaeopteryx, the first bird
• Jurassic/Cretaceous—The largest land animals of all time
• Jurassic/Cretaceous—Ichthyosaursand other marine reptiles
• Jurassic/Cretaceous—Pteradactyls, the flying reptiles
• Jurassic/Cretaceous—Are birds really dinosaurs?
• Jurassic/Cretaceous—Cold- vs. hot-blooded dinosaurs
• Mesozoic Era—Dinosaurs
• Mesozoic Era—Dinosaur extinction
• Mesozoic Era—Dinosaur ichnofossils: Tracks
• Mesozoic Era—Dinosaur ichnofossils: Unusual preservation and bite marks
• Mesozoic Era—Dinosaur Ichnofossils: Coprolites (dung) and Gastroliths (stomach stones)
• Mesozoic/Cenozoic Era—Bugs and more in amber
• Cenozoic Era—Adaptive radiation and "Age of Mammals"
• Paleogene (Tertiary) Period—Eocene Life
• Paleogene (Tertiary) Period—Eocene global warming
• Paleogene (Tertiary) Period—Oligocene Life
• Neogene (Tertiary) Period—Miocene and Pliocene Life
• Cenozoic Era—Mammal evolution examples
• Cenozoic Era—Hominid evolution
• Quaternary Period—Pleistocene "Ice Ages"
• Quaternary Period—Pleistocene life
• Quaternary Period—Pleistocene (6th) mass extinction?