A TIMELINE FOR THE PLANET                                           click for Home Page

Contents

Brief notes on some of the events mentioned.

(In roughly date order.)

 

Click on the chosen heading.

 

Why ‘kMy’?

The nature of scientific truth

            Physics Envy

Big Bang

Evolution of the Universe

Continental Drift (maps)

Climate down the ages

 

The young planet

Birth of Planet

            How do we know how old our planet is?

            Lord Kelvin

Hadean Aeon

Oldest Rocks

The ‘Age’ of a rock

Zircons

            The first crust

The geology of the young Earth

Our planet settling down

The dawn of life (bacteria)

Dawn of Life

            All life the same

Proteins & the genetic code

Enzymes

            When did life emerge?

            How did life emerge?

Bacteria

            Why can’t we do our own chemistry?

            Cyano-bacteria

Stromatolites

First fossils

Photosynthesis

Banded Iron Formations (BIFs)

Red Beds

Oxygen

Oxygenation of the Planet

Supercontinents

            Geological and biological timescales

Life’s next stage (eukaryotic cells)

The first ‘eukaryotic’ cells

The appearance of Complex Creatures

            The late Proterozoic

            Algae

            Towards animals

The vagaries of the fossil record

Plate Tectonics

            Internal and External oceans

            Dance of the continents

            Sea Level

            When did plate tectonics start?  

            the different types of rock

            Mafic rocks

The supercontinent of Rodinia

The terrible Varangerian ice age

Life learns that ‘big is beautiful’

The Ediacara fauna

The Cambrian explosion

The world 500 My ago  (Cambrian Period)

Mass extinctions

            What causes mass extinctions?

            Carbon isotope ratio

            Organic biomarkers

Trilobites

The Burgess Shale

Invading the land

Plants invade the Land

            The first fungi

The world 460 My ago  (Ordovician Period)

The world 425 My ago  (Silurian Period)

Animals invade the Land

Fish invade the land

The importance of size

The first ‘vascular’ plants

Why sea level varies

The first trees

            Sex

            seeds

The Carboniferous coal forests

The world 350 My ago  (Carboniferous Period)

The supercontinent of Pangaea

The world 240 My ago  (Pangaea time)

The world 200 My ago  (Triassic Extinction time)

Learning to fly

When the oxygen level skyrocketed

The world 150 My ago  (Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary)

The evolution of flight

Insects acquire flight

The flying reptiles

How the flying reptiles got so big

The first birds

Birds

            Birds’ lungs

Towards modern times

The strange Triassic animals

            Early mammals

Gymnosperms

The world 150 My ago  (mid Cretaceous)

Flowering plants appear

Flood basalts

            What killed off the dinosaurs?

The world   65 My ago (K-T boundary, end of dinos and flying reptiles)

The rise of humans

Paleocene animals

Eocene animals

The primates

Mediterranean crisis

The rise of humans

Humans, how like animals?

            What is the difference between us and animals?

            When did our line split off?

The origins of walking

            Coming down from the trees

            Hard evidence of walking

The first hominids

            Our first serious ancestors

The first primitive humans

The importance of brain size

            The hobbit

The arrival of the mighty hunter (& hominids reach Europe)

            Fire and cooking.  So early?  Some scientists think so.

The dawn of language

            The spread of modern languages

            World language

The spear throwers (also H. antecessor, the butchers of Boxgrove & huts)

The Neanderthals

Stone age tools

            Oldowan tools

            Acheulian tools

            Mousterian tools

            Aurignacian tools

Modern Humans

Modern humans  

            Taking over the planet

            The Genetic contribution

            The Rise of Culture

            Weaving & the Venus Figurines

            Language & symbolic thought

            A bit about the Neanderthals

Cave paintings

            Fumane Cave

Chauvet Cave

            Lascaux Cave

Post Ice Age

The Flood

            The Black Sea

            World-Wide floods

            Doggerland, now the bed of the North Sea

The rise of Agriculture

The metal ages

            The Copper age

            The Bronze age

The Iron age

The invention of writing

The rise of Civilisation

            The dawn of Civilisation

            The first villages and towns

            The first cities

            The first modern civilisations

            ‘Middle Asian’ civilisations

            Civilisation, good or bad?

            Today’s civilisation

The rise of language

            The spread of modern languages

            World language

The great inventions of mankind

            The arch

The invention of the Wheel

The history of medicine

            The origins of modern medicine

            Ancient Egyptian medicine

Boats and sail

            Reed craft

            Colonising South-East Asia

            Colonising America

            Colonising the Pacific

            Sail and Egyptian boats

            Square rig

            Fore-and-aft rig

The coming of steam

            Clock time and sun time

            The railways, one of the Great Inventions of Mankind?

The Industrial revolution

            Why did the Industrial revolution start in Britain?

            The modern Industrial revolution