Earth’s HistoryPresented by Valerie Harrish

MGMS 7401

Precambrian Era:also known as the Ice Age

• The time period that defined Earth as an “Ice House”.

• The oldest known supercontinent existed on Earth at this time, called Rodinia.

Paleozoic Era:the Cambrian Period

During this period, the land mass that covered much of the Earth’s surface was known as Gondwana.

Paleozoic Era:the Ordovician Period

The major ocean of this period was the Panthalassic Ocean.

Paleozoic Era:the Silurian Period

There is a lack of “white” or obvious ice caps on the map during this time period, perhaps suggesting that this was a warmer time than we even know now.

Paleozoic Era:the Devonian Period

With the collision of continents, the Appalachian Mountain began to appear during this period.

Paleozoic: Early Carboniferous & Late Carboniferous

Coal beds begin to forming during the early period. By the late period, we see ice caps beginning to take shape.

Paleozoic Era: the Permian Period

As the era came to a close, the continents collided once again to form the supercontinent Pangea.

Earth is nearly unrecognizable compared to current day.

Mesozoic Era:the Triassic Period

In this period, we really see a lot of migration and movement of animals across the supercontinent, Pangea.

Mesozoic Era:the Jurassic Period

The Atlantic ocean is beginning to form and the continents are beginning to take shapes we know

Mesozoic Era:the Cretaceous Period

The movement of tectonic plates caused the Rocky Mountains to form. For A subduction occurred with the pacific plate and North America.

Cenozoic Era:the Eocene Period

About 50 million years ago the Himalayans to formed when the Indian plate collided with the Eurasia plate.

Cenozoic Era:the Miocene Period

In this period, the Earth and its continents begin to take the shape and formations that we know and recognize now.

Future World

The continually moving plates will eventually cause continents to collide again to form a Pangea Ultima in one large Pacific Ocean.

REFERENCES:

Scotese, C. (2010). Paleomar project: Earth

history. Retrieved September 15, 2014 from

http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm