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Geological Time Scale Notes

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32 views

Geological Time Scale Notes

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miraavegailross
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Geological Time Scale and Relative Dating Notes

(from South Carolina Department of Education, 2005 Science Academic Standards)


What is the Geologic Time Scale?

What does the time scale represent?

▪ The geologic time scale divides up the history of the earth based on life-forms that have existed
during specific times since the creation of the planet. These divisions are called geochronologic
units (geo: rock, chronology: time).

▪ Most of these life-forms are found as fossils, which are the remains or traces of an organism
from the geologic past that has been preserved in sediment or rock. Without fossils, scientists
may not have concluded that the earth has a history that long precedes mankind.

▪ The Geologic Time Scale is divided by the following divisions:

▪ Eons: Longest subdivision; based on the abundance of certain fossils

▪ Eras: Next to longest subdivision; marked by major changes in the fossil record

▪ Periods: Based on types of life existing at the time

▪ Epochs: Shortest subdivision; marked by differences in life forms and


can vary from continent to continent.

▪ Due to the fact that early geologists had no way of knowing how the discoveries of the Earth
were going to develop, geologist over time have put the time scale together piece by piece.
Units were named as they were discovered. Sometimes unit names were borrowed from local
geography, from a person, or from the type of rock that dominated the unit.

Examples

▪ Cambrian: From the Latin name for Wales. Named for exposures of strata found in a
type-section in Wales by British geologist Adam Sedgwick.

▪ Devonian: Named after significant outcrops first discovered near Devonshire, England

▪ Jurassic: Named for representative strata first seen in the Jura Mountains by German
geologist Humboldt in 1795)

▪ Cretaceous: From the Latin “creta” meaning chalk by a Belgian geologist

▪ The earliest time of the Earth is called the Hadean and refers to a period of time for which we
have no rock record, and the Archean followed, which corresponds to the ages of the oldest
known rocks on earth. These, with the Proterozoic Eon are called the Precambrian Eon. The
remainder of geologic time, including present day, belongs to the Phanerozoic Eon.

▪ While the units making up the time scale are called geochronologic units, the actual rocks
formed during those specific time intervals are called chronostratigraphic units. The actual rock

record of a period is called a system, so rocks from the Cambrian Period are of the Cambrian
system.
Eons:
Precambrian: Earliest span of time
Phanerozoic: Everything since

Eras:
Paleozoic
Mesozoic
Cenozoic

Periods:
Cambrian
Ordovician
Silurian
Paleozoic
“Age of Devonian
Invertebrates” Carboniferous
Permian Epochs:
Triassic Paleocene
Mesozoic “Age of
Jurassic Eocene
Reptiles”
Cretaceous Oligocene
Paleogene
Cenozoic “Age Miocene
Neogene Pliocene
of Mammals”
Quaternary

Pleistocene
Holocene
The Proterozoic:
\

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