Evolutionary Timeline Shopping
Timeline
Website Links For
Timeline
 

Information About

Evolutionary Timeline




For the history of evolutionary biology, see History Of Evolutionary Thought .


This timeline of the evolution of life outlines the major events in the development of Life on the planet Earth . For a thorough explanatory context, see the History Of Earth , and Geologic Time Scale . The dates given in this article are estimates based on scientific evidence.

In Biology , Evolution is the process by which populations of organisms acquire and pass on novel Trait s from generation to generation. Its occurrence over large stretches of time explains the origin of New Species and ultimately the vast diversity of the biological world. Contemporary species are related to each other through Common Descent , products of evolution and Speciation over billions of years.


BASIC TIMELINE

The basic timeline is a 4.6 Billion Year Old Earth , with (very approximately):


DETAILED TIMELINE

Note that Ma means "million years ago".



Hadean eon

3800 Ma and earlier.


Archean eon

3800 Ma - 2500 Ma


Proterozoic eon

2500 Ma - 542 Ma


Phanerozoic eon

542 Ma - present

The Phanerozoic eon, literally the "period of well-displayed life", marks the appearance in the fossil record of abundant, shell-forming organisms. It is subdivided into three eras, the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic, which are divided by major Mass Extinction s.


Paleozoic era

542 Ma - 251.0 Ma


Mesozoic era



Cenozoic era

65.5 Ma - present


SEE ALSO



FURTHER READING



REFERENCES



EXTERNAL LINKS