suggested Louis Agassiz.
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| "The earth is the geologist's vast puzzle box." | |||
suggested Louis Agassiz. |
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| Record | The fossils from the walls of the Grand Canyon account for 500 million years of adaptive radiation of life from the sea, to the air and onto dry land. Large sections of the fossil record are missing from the canyon's rock walls. These fossils in the rocks reveal a startling puzzle from different ages of the land. | ||
These canyon walls record what the displays at the American Museum of Natural History, or the Oxford University Museum of Natural History interpret for all of us who sojourn on earth for but a brief duration.
The great divisions in the "rocks of ages" record both subtle and enormous changes based on the shifting dominance of marine,to vegetation and eventually terrestrial fossils. These divisions in the fossil records are the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic eras in the geological past.
by Joseph Siry
GEOLOGICAL CHRONOLOGY OF PLANET EARTH
YEARS, BP: ------------ SEA -------- CLIMATE -------- WILDERNESS
BIG
BANG
- or
- Immense
Conception ?
13.7 billion,
The origins of the universe and the simplest atoms: H & HE
5 billion,
HADEAN
4.6-- 3.8 billion, formation of the planet Earth.
4 billion,
3 billion,
RNA world
AMINO ACIDS AND PROTEIN MOLECULES are precursors of cells
proto-cells fossilized PROCARYOTIC MONERAN CELLS spread in oceans
PRO/PALEOPHYTIC
3 billion, Literally: older plants; figuratively called the dawning of the earliest plants. Plants, algae and some bacteria are those essential creatures with the capacity to use solar radiation in order to nourish themselves, maintain body parts and function to reproduce. Their waste product --oxygen-- eventually transformed the Earth's older atmosphere into the present oxygen rich air.
2.4 billion, Rift valley forms in Slave/bear provinces
2.3 billion, Stromatolite Reefs form of blue-green bacterial mats
2.2 billion, Oldest Glacial evidence
2.1 Slave/ Bear continent rests over mantle plumes, creating volcanic activity.
2.1 -- 1.8 billion,
SEXUAL REPRODUCTION MANIFEST PHANEROZOIC
680 million,
oxygen grows to 3% to 10%
of the ambient level in the atmosphere, Ediacarian limestone laid down in a
shallow, warm seas. Such marine seas are where calcium in the
water reacts with carbon to form a milky dispersion called calcium
carbonate which is heavy enough to settle at the bottom of a watery
pool if the winds do not stir up the bottom sediments.
oldest animal fossils;
AVALONIAN
OROGENY
ends 
in the creation of a micro-continent called Avalonia (right) as a series of terrain (an island arc) that forms the rocks
now found in the mountains of Great Britain, Newfoundland, Canada and eastern New York state
and New England,
suggesting that these now separate mountain chains were once a single chain like the Andes.
"Rhode Island and the New England states were not the only land masses to emerge from the Avalonian arc. In the sketch above, J marks the approximate location of Jamestown, Rhode Island. EW indicates the portion of Avalonia that became southern Ireland, England and Wales, Ib shows Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and Ar Armorica and Bohemia. A portion of the arc is now part of Morocco. Future parts of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, as well as most of New England are offshore from Florida (labeled F on the map). The portion of the arc that became part of the Carolinas is to the right of Jamestown, offshore of what is now Venezuela, in South America."
670 million, jellyfish fossil, blue-green bacterial reef forming organisms flourish in warm shallow seas, called stromatolites.
600 million,
Cambrian
545 million, extensive oceans cover North America (N. A.) warm seas.
An explosion of shallow marine organisms with greater varieties of body plans (invertebrates) than is now extant..
540 million, lampreys.
Marine arthropod called Anomalocaris (at left and below from Burgess shale fossils) is a seaside predator of some immense size and speculated ferocity. It fed in waters where salt water algae, sponges,
brachiopods, cnidarians, mollusks, trilobites, crustaceans, starfish, and stromatolite
reef building species spread in the warm tropical seas.
This predator was a large creature feeding on bottom dwelling denizens, or animals classified by where they live and are called called benthic fauna. Anomalocaris was a free swimming animal, unlike the corals and anemones.
A far greater diversity of body forms existed in this period, than now, since the evidence in the Burgess Shale (Cananda) formations is extensive:
530 m. y. a. : The BURGESS SHALE FORMATION: "By recognizing so many unique anatomies in the Burgess, and by showing that familiar groups were then experimenting with designs so far beyond the modern range, they have inverted the" way we think about the diversity of life on earth. "The sweep of anatomical variety reached a maximum right after the initial diversification of multicellular animal. The later history of life proceeded by elimination, not expansion. The current earth may hold more species than ever before, but most are iterations on a few basic body plans." "Compared with the Burgess seas, today's oceans contain many more species based upon many fewer anatomical plans." "The maximum range of anatomical possibilities arises with the first rush of diversification. Later history is a tale of restriction, as most of the early experiments succumb and life settles down to generating endless variants upon a few surviving models. " Stephen J. Gould, Wonderful Life, p. 47. |
 |
520 Avalonian continent finally broken up.
510 million, Closing of the ancient Iapetus Sea (the proto-atlantic Ocean)
extensive & massive extinctions of sea-life; worldwide ecological collapse.
Ordovician over half of North America covered by ocean water.
505 million, early shelled
(calcium carbonate) organisms such as 
Anomalocaris and fishes.
500 million, early mountain building (Orogeny) in Eastern N. A.
Cephalopods like the chambered nautilus' ancestors called ammonites are varied and dominant. The earliest vertebrates are extensively preserved in limestone dominant rock (slate and marble sources). Huge deposits of once living creatures form oil and gas deposits associated with the rocks of the Cincinnati Arch; Tapeats Sandstone and Bright Angel formations of Grand Canyon.
438 million,
early vascular plants, ancestral mosses and liverworts, northern APPALACHIANS formed from the collision of two continents: Laurentia and Baltica during the TACONIC OROGENY.
408 million,
Coelacanths and other jawless
fishes, earliest evergreen forests. And in the seas there were sharks.
Giant eurypterid 'sea scorpions' pursued early jawed fishes, including acanthodians (sometimes called 'spiny sharks', though not related to true sharks) and shield-headed fishes called placoderms (which probably shared a common ancestor with the sharks). Rugose and halysite corals built great reefs, providing food and living spaces for many different kinds of creature. The sea floor supported a rich variety of crinoid 'sea lilies', stalked clam-like animals called brachiopods, bizarre colonial critters known as graptolites, and early versions of mollusks - such as chitons, tusk shells, and straight-shelled cephalopods related to modern-day nautiloids. The first plants - small, leafy pioneers known as rhinophytes - colonized the land, followed shortly thereafter by joint-limbed creatures such as scorpions and millipedes.
Carboniferous or coal forming age persisted due to extensive swamps and warm climate conditions over Eurasia and North America.
A number of Carboniferous arachnids somewhat resembled spiders, and in fact appeared at about the same time as the first true spiders. Like spiders, they were terrestrial and respired through book lungs, and walked on eight legs. However, they were not true spiders, nor necessarily ancestral to them, but represented independent offshoots of the Arachnida. Trigonotarbids are currently the oldest known land arthropods.
Most of these fossils are found in the Upper Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), though they have also been found in the Ludlow Lane fauna of England (Pridolian, late Silurian), the Alken an der Mosel fauna of Germany (Emsian, early Devonian) the Rhynie Chert of Scotland (Siegenian, early Devonian) and the Gilboa, New York fauna from the Panther Mountain formation (Givetian, middle Devonian). Not much is known about their relationships. [See: U. C. Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology].
Mississippian
360 million, modern Gymnosperms; cycads, conifers and gingkoes, plants earliest amphibians and reptiles emerge in vast warm, moist (tropical) swamps. Huge dragon flies and giant horsetails emerge.
Horseshoe crab ancestors --relatives of spiders and scorpions-- emerge in the fossil record and they possess blue or copper bearing (not iron in hemoglobin) blood.
345 million, vegetation that becomes fossilized leads to coal formation; Oceans increase in volume.
325 million,
GONDWANALAND (a vast southern continent) separates form Euro-America Pennsylvanian Sea invades Southwestern North America.
Pennsylvanian
320 million, beatles and dragon flies thrive in luxuriant swamps, tropical inland seas. Nevada is an ocean bed.
300 million, Tree ferns and lush forests dominated by the scale tree or Lepidodendron characterize widespread swamps that formed the basis of today's coal deposits in America, Europe, South Africa and Russia.
Southern APPALACHIANS formed from collision with AFRICA; INSECTS, SNAILS, earliest REPTILES found.
286 million, Appalachian
Mountains attain the
size of today's Rocky mountains as the super continent Pangea formed, Dimetrodon dinosaurs spread.
Ice sheets form in the southern portions of Pangean super continent.
240 million years ago crocodiles & alligators separated from dinosaurs .
245 million, Permian
Extinction: half the known families of animals and plants, both terrestrial
and marine, perished!
Triassic,
235 million, renewed warming allows stromatolites, coralline algae & bryozoans begin to form reef communities after a long,10 million year hiatus.
The late Triassic world was characterized by the great continent of Pangaea,straddling the equator, depicted on this map of the globe at that time. This is the period in which the ancestors of todays turtles & tortoises arose taking advantage of teh warm waters and warm seas of the great Panthallasic Ocean and the Tethys Ocean stretching underthe Earth's equatorial sun.
Jurassic, slow opening of the Atlantic Ocean due to sea floor spreading.
208 million, early flowering plants or angiosperms appear. Archaeopteryx flying reptilian bird
Cretaceous
144 million, a large equatorial shallow ocean called Tethys Sea forms connecting the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian ocean basins leaving only 18% of the Earth as dry land, as the first of many circum-equatorial and hence warm water systems redistributing heat around the planet. Spread of gymnosperms & angiosperms.
120 million, unvaryingly hot climate prevails.
100 million, placental mammals appear and as birds spread worldwide.
66.4 million, Cretaceous extinction of dinosaurs and ammonites is the largest mass die-off of life up to this time.
Paleocene
65 million, collision of India with Eurasia begins. Himalayan Orogeny or mountain uplift starts.
Eocene
57.8 million, early primates, giant birds, formation of grasslands, early horses.
40 million,
Oligocene
36.6 million, The San Andreas Fault system starts to gradually take shape in the middle Tertiary time (beginning about 28 million years ago). The gradual movement on the fault system since that time is about 282 miles stretching from the Gulf of California to Cape Mendocino and dividing the state into two opposite moving plates along a seismically active transform fault boundary.
Miocene
23.7 million, extensive marine intrusion in California, Florida, the Mississippi Valley, and Texas, called a marine transgression; monkey-like primates emerge. Northern Australia reaches its present tropical position and the Great Barrier reef begins forming. A circum-equatorial sea girdles the earth.
15 million, the initiation of the San Andreas fault system, the plate tectonic setting of the western U.S. had until then been dominated by subduction toward the east of one or more oceanic plates beneath the continent, the Farallon plate prominent amongst them
Volcanic rocks in the Hollister of Central California region are roughly 12 million years old whereas the volcanic rocks in the Sonoma-Clear Lake region north of San Francisco Bay range from only few million to as little as 10,000 years old. Both of these volcanic areas and older volcanic rocks in the north bay region are offset by the modern regional fault system.
(Image modified after original illustration by Irwin, 1990 and Stoffer, 2006.).
The convergence of these oceanic plates with the western edge of the North American plate profoundly influenced volcanic and igneous activity west of and including Colorado, and caused mountain building (orogenesis) in the same region.
10 million, Aegyptopithecene Apes thrive in northern Africa.
divergence of apes (Chimpanzees and Gorillas) and hominid lines.
Equatorial Africa is well forested with little of the savannah that exists today.
6 million, Orrorin tugenensis in Kenya's rift valley, earliest human ancestor.
Orrorin tugenensis, a.k.a. the "Original man" from Tugen Hills, Kenya evidence for bipedalism at 6 million years ago!
American Museum of Natural History
The molecularly derived date (DNA sequences) for human divergence from chimpanzees.
Pliocene
5.5 million, Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia .
5.3 million, Antarctica rafted to its current polar position generating conditions for glaciers and ice sheets to form augmenting worldwide cooling and a lowering of sea levels worldwide
4.4 million, Ardipithecus ramidus in east Africa ( "the root of humankind" - in the native Ethiopian language. ).
4.2 - 3.9 million, Australopithecus anamensis from east Africa.
"dawn of human ancestry"
*
*caveat: "virtually all our theories about human origins were relatively unconstrained by fossil data." David Pilbeam
3.5 million, Australopithecus bahrelghazali ( in Chad, central Africa ).
3.5 million, Kenyanthropus platyops.
3.4 million, hominid fossils in eastern Africa
A. afarensis emerge as an "alleged" candidate for human ancestry from 4 to 3 million years ago (mya), East African.
Human family's history exhibit at The American Museum of Natural History
3.2 million, "Lucy" hominid skeletal remains.
3 million, the closing of the circum-equatorial sea by a rise of land along the Isthmus of Panama, elevation of the Himalayan plateau, and growth of permanent ice sheets in Antarctica.
genus Homo coexistent with Australopithecus, East Africa.
3 to 2 million, begins a million year survival of South Africa's A. africanus.
2.5 million, Australopithecus garhi - was recovered between 1996 and 1998 from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia, evidence of lithic, or stone culture and of food processing (two characteristics normally attributed to the genus Homo).
2 million, A series of Ice Ages and interglacial retreats commences. As ice accumulates the sea level declines; as glaciers melt the sea level rises. Prehistoric sea level varies from 400 feet lower to 50 feet higher than today.
Pleistocene
1.6 million
A series of Ice Ages persists with intermittent interglacial warming periods.
500,000
250,000
100,000 Earliest modern human Homo sapiens
50,000 Neanderthals in La Ferrassie, France
25,000 Interglacial retreat of ice, cave paintings in Lascaeux, France and Altimira, Spain (18,000 years ago)
20,000 Ice Age (Würm or Wisconsin) resumes with ice sheets in Britain and Scandinavia and equivalent ice in New England and the Great Lakes.
15,000 Interglacial Warming resumes
loss of many large mammal species (mastodons, mammoths, giant ground sloth, saber tooth tigers, etc.).
Holocene
10,000 Ice caps are shrinking causing sea levels to rise rapidly over 140 feet.
9,000 Pronounced warming of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius, worldwide.
8,000 domestication of cereal grains in the Mid-East, rice in south Asia.
7,000 Cities at Jericho, Israel and Catal Hüyuk, Anatolia.
6,000 "Homogecene" begins (term used to describe the homogenizing influence humans have on flora and fauna (biota) since the pursuit of agriculture created uniform crops and ornamental plants.
Allegedly humans contribute to a warmer atmosphere as they adopt farming practices in eight areas around the world:
30% of the Earth is dry land as the ice caps remain only in Greenland and Antarctica after the retreat of the Wisconsin (Wurm) ice age.
Recent pre historical and historical events.
Visit the American Museum of Natural History, on line.
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