| Eon
|
Era
|
Period
|
Begin-End
|
Picture
|
What
happened
|
| Phanerozoic
|
|
|
Cenozoic
|
|
|
Quartiary
|
Holocene
|
10.000-today |
|
Modern
humans and animals*. Since the beginning of the Quaternary, the plants and
animals are similar to ours today, only a few species highly adapted to
the Ice Age did not remain. The final chapter in the history of the Earth is at the same
time the first chapter in the history of mankind.
|
| Pleistocene |
1.800.000-10.000 |
|
The Ice Age.
On the northern hemisphere, it was very cold, snow and ice spread from the
North Pole, and covered wide area of North America, Europe and Asia.
Mammoths lived at the Drachenfels!
|
| Tertiary
|
| Neogene
|
|
Pliocene
|
5.300.000-1.800.000 |
|
Miocene
and Pliocene are considered as the age of the elephant. Also the first
cattle species appeared. And there are the humans: Homo habilis and Homo
erectus.
|
|
Miocene
|
23.800.000-5.300.000 |
|
In
many animals, we can see the kinship Verwandschaft with today's animals,
so in the horse, camels, elephants, deer and big cats (except for the
saber-teeth). The first hominids appear.
|
|
Seven
Mountains
With the final volcanic eruption the Petersberg comes into
being.
|
| Paleocene
|
|
Oligocene
|
33.700.000-23.800.000 |
 |
The
primeval forests vanished, instead grassland spread, and with it the grass
eating animals. The first apes appeared in the Oligocene.
Seven Mountains
There is
volcanic activity in the region of the Seven Mountains.
|
|
|
Three times large volcanic
eruptions occur, with the lava rolling, overlapping, cooling and creating
hills, that were
then shaped over the millenniums by the wind and weather into the landscape we see
today.
Besides the ancient slate, as a result of these three large eruptions, there are three now
newer types of rock, sorted by age: trachyt (Drachenfels), latit (Wolkenburg,
Stenzelberg)
and basalt (Ölberg, Petersberg).
|
|
Eocene
|
54.800.000-33.700.000 |
|
The
mammals became larger and varied: there were the ancestors of our today's
animals, but also strange-looking animals like large, carnivorous running
birds.
|
|
Paleocene
|
65.000.000-54.800.000 |
|
The earth gradually took the shape that we know
today. Tiny mammals aalmost seemed lost in the extensive jungles. Already
during the Cretacious, many new life forms had appeared
that now diversified and flourished flowering
plants, modern groups of insects including bees.
|
| Mesozoic
|
| |
Cretacious
Upper
Lower |
99.000.000-65.000.000
144.000.000-99.000.000
|
|
The break-up of the former supercontinent Pangea
continued, now increasingly faster. During the Cretacious there were more dinosaur species than during the Triassic and Jurassic together. At the
end of this period an asteriod hit the Earth in the Yucatán Peninsula,
Mexico, today we speak of the Chicxulub impact crater. It was a terrible event for all the dinosaurs and many
other species who went forever.
|
Jurassic
Upper
Middle
Lower |
159.000.000-144.000.000
180.000.000-159.000.000
206.000.000-180.000.000
|
|
During the Jurassic giant herds of gargantuan plant
eaters, the largest land animals of all time, migrated through the world
back than. They had always to watch out for big flesh eaters and smaller, lighter built
predators. Pangea began to break up. |
Triassic
Upper
Middle
Lower |
227.000.000-206.000.000
242.000.000-227.000.000
248.000.000-242.000.000
|
|
After so many animal groups had died out at the end of
the Permian, the Triassic was a new beginning. Now big reptiles roamed
through the landscapes and waters of the Pangea, and they evolved into
dinosaurs, pterosaurians (flying dinosaurs) and crocodiles. |
| Paleozoic
|
|
|
Permian
Upper
Lower |
256.000.000-248.000.000
290.000.000-256.000.000
|
|
All
landmasses were assembled in a new super continent, Pangea. The Permian was a time of
change for animals and plants. Sea animals, amphibies, reptiles, sea
animals, early mammallike animals roamed through the landscapes and waters
of the Pangea. The Permian ended sadly, almost half the animal groups died
out.
|
Carboniferous
Upper (Pennsylvanian)
Lower (Mississippian)
|
323.000.000-290.000.000
354.000.000-323.000.000
|
|
The term "Carboniferous" refers to the rich
deposits of coal that occurred during this time through northern Europe,
Asia and North America. Back then, dense forests of exotic trees covered
large parts of the Pangea. Amphibies and reptiles evolved in great variety
there and became very big.
|
Devonian
Upper
Middle
Lower |
370.000.000-354.000.000
391.000.000-370.000.000
417.000.000-391.000.000
|
|
The Devonian was the age of the fishes. But also the dry land became alive and green,
and by the end of the Devonian the first
vertebrate animal coming from the sea, the amphibian Ichthyostega,
discoverd the dry land as new habitat for himself and his descendants.
|
Silurian
Upper
Lower |
423.000.000-417.000.000
443.000.000-423.000.000
|
|
Also
the Silurian world was a water world, dominated by the giant Panthalassic
Ocean. The ice melted and the climate became milder, lush life teemed in
the warm oceans and coral reefs appeared. In the swamp regions the first
plants grew, and the centipede was the first animal to crawl over the dry
land.
|
Ordovician
Upper
Middle
Lowers |
458.000.000-443.000.000
470.000.000-458.000.000
490.000.000-470.000.000
|
|
The
Ordovician world was a water world. A giant ocean, the Panthalassic Ocean,
covered almost the whole northern hemisphere, so most of all the sea
animals evolved in great variety, among them starfishes, brachiopods and
jawless fishes. By the end of the Ordovician another ice age began, it was
one of the coldest times in earth history.
|
| Cambrian |
543.000.000-490.000.000 |
|
In
the ancient oceans Iapetus and Panthalassia a great variety of small
animals evolved within a short time, among them trilobites ("Cambrian
Explosion"). The oxygen level of the atmosphere further rose and
reached approximately present-day level.
|
| Proterozoic |
| |
Neoproterozoic
|
1.000.000.000-542.000.000 |
|
By the beginning of the proterozoic about 50-70%
of present-day continental crust existed – the first ancient continents
had come into being. Broken up into a number of tectonic plates, the earth
crust has been in a constant slow-motion ever since, moving only a few
centimeters per year, continents were assembled and broke apart.
This period in earth history is also called the age of
"hidden life". There are hints that simple life forms existed
already about 1.000 million years ago, yet it is difficult to find out who
they were and how they lived. What we know about ancient animals is what
we learn by studying fossils. However, the living things in those ancient
times didn’t have a hard, protecting shell yet that could have been
preserved for us, so almost nothing has remained from them. The oldest
animal fossils date from the last period of the Proterozoic, the Vendian
(600-540 million years ago). They were found in the Ediacara Hills in
Southern Australia. |
| Mesoproterozoic
|
1.600.000.000-1.000.000.000 |
| Paleoproterozoic
|
2.500.000.000-1.600.000.000
|
| Archean
|
| |
Neoarchean |
2.800.000.000-2.500.000.000 |
|
The oldest stones that we know of, found in Greenland,
South Africa and Australia, are about 3.800 million years old.
About
3.500 million years ago the first traces of life appeared in the sea,
close to the "Black Smokers": bacteria and single-celled blue
algae.
|
| Mesoarchean |
3.200.000.000-2.800.000.000
|
| Eoarchean |
3.600.000.000-3.200.000.000
|
| Paleoarchean |
3.800.000.000-3.600.000.000 |
| Hadean |
| |
|
4.500.000.000-3.800.000.000 |
|
Hadean time is the period
between the forming of the Earth and the oldest rocks found. During the
first million years of its existence, the "Blue Planet" was a
giant ball of embers. As it cooled off in the coldness of space, the
embers on the surface solidified into rocks. Underneath remained a layer
of melted stones, the earth mantle. Enormous forces from deep inside the
earth continued to have an effect on the surface and the solid crust was
folded and broken over and over again. The earth further cooled off and
began to build an atmosphere, yet the oxygen level was extremely low.
About 4.000 millions years ago ancient oceans came into being. |
