Physical Setting/Earth Science Reference Tables — 2011 Edition 8 PLEISTOCENE PLIOCENE MIOCENE OLIGOCENE EOCENE PALEOCENE LATE EARLY LATE MIDDLE EARLY LATE MIDDLE EARLY LATE MIDDLE EARLY LATE MIDDLE EARLY LATE MIDDLE EARLY LATE EARLY LATE MIDDLE EARLY LATE MIDDLE EARLY EARLY LATE GEOLOGIC HISTORY Elliptocephala Cryptolithus Phacops Hexameroceras Manticoceras Eucalyptocrinus Ctenocrinus Tetragraptus Dicellograptus Eurypterus Stylonurus B L A E C D G H F I J N K M Centroceras Valcouroceras Coelophysis (Index fossils not drawn to scale) Era Eon PHANERO- ZOIC P R E C A M B R I A N A R C H E A N P R O T E R O Z O I C L A T E L A T E M I D D L E M I D D L E E A R L Y E A R L Y 0 500 1000 2000 3000 4000 4600 Million years ago CENOZOIC MESOZOIC PALEOZOIC QUATERNARY NEOGENE PALEOGENE CRETACEOUS JURASSIC TRIASSIC PERMIAN CARBONIF- EROUS DEVONIAN Period Epoch Life on Earth SILURIAN ORDOVICIAN CAMBRIAN 580 488 444 416 318 299 200 146 Million years ago NY Rock Record PENNSYLVANIAN HOLOCENE 65.5 251 1.8 5.3 0.01 0 23.0 33.9 MISSISSIPPIAN Humans, mastodonts, mammoths 55.8 Large carnivorous mammals Abundant grazing mammals Earliest grasses Many modern groups of mammals Mass extinction of dinosaurs, ammonoids, and many land plants Earliest flowering plants Diverse bony fishes Earliest birds Earliest mammals Mass extinction of many land and marine organisms (including trilobites) Mammal-like reptiles Abundant reptiles Extensive coal-forming forests Abundant amphibians Large and numerous scale trees and seed ferns (vascular plants); earliest reptiles 359 Earliest amphibians and plant seeds Extinction of many marine organisms Earth’s first forests Earliest ammonoids and sharks Abundant fish Earliest insects Earliest land plants and animals Abundant eurypterids Invertebrates dominant Earth’s first coral reefs Burgess shale fauna (diverse soft-bodied organisms) Earliest fishes Earliest trilobites 542 Abundant stromatolites Ediacaran fauna (first multicellular, soft-bodied marine organisms) Extinction of many primitive marine organisms First sexually reproducing organisms Oldest known rocks Estimated time of origin of Earth and solar system Sediment Bedrock Abundant dinosaurs and ammonoids Earliest dinosaurs Great diversity of life-forms with shelly parts 1300 Evidence of biological carbon Earliest stromatolites Oldest microfossils Oceanic oxygen produced by cyanobacteria combines with iron, forming iron oxide layers on ocean floor Oceanic oxygen begins to enter the atmosphere Physical Setting/Earth Science Reference Tables — 2011 Edition 9 Grenville orogeny: metamorphism of bedrock now exposed in the Adirondacks and Hudson Highlands Advance and retreat of last continental ice Sands and clays underlying Long Island and Staten Island deposited on margin of Atlantic Ocean Dome-like uplift of Adirondack region begins Intrusion of Palisades sill Initial opening of Atlantic Ocean North America and Africa separate Pangaea begins to break up Catskill delta forms Erosion of Acadian Mountains Acadian orogeny caused by collision of North America and Avalon and closing of remaining part of Iapetus Ocean Salt and gypsum deposited in evaporite basins Erosion of Taconic Mountains; Queenston delta forms Taconian orogeny caused by closing of western part of Iapetus Ocean and collision between North America and volcanic island arc Widespread deposition over most of New York along edge of Iapetus Ocean Rifting and initial opening of Iapetus Ocean Erosion of Grenville Mountains OF NEW YORK STATE Mastodont Beluga Whale Cooksonia Bothriolepis Maclurites Eospirifer Mucrospirifer Aneurophyton Condor Naples Tree Cystiphyllum Lichenaria Pleurodictyum P O R Q S T U V W X Y Z Platyceras Time Distribution of Fossils (including important fossils of New York) Important Geologic Events in New York Inferred Positions of Earth’s Landmasses ADU (2011) The center of each lettered circle indicates the approximate time of existence of a specific index fossil (e.g. Fossil lived at the end of the Early Cambrian). PLACODERM FISH A Alleghenian orogeny caused by collision of North America and Africa along transform margin, forming Pangaea 119 million years ago 359 million years ago 458 million years ago 232 million years ago 59 million years ago TRILOBITES C B A BIRDS S E D F NAUTILOIDS AMMONOIDS G CRINOIDS H I J K GRAPTOLITES L DINOSAURS MAMMALS O N EURYPTERIDS M P Q VASCULAR PLANTS T U V CORALS R BRACHIOPODS GASTROPODS W X Y Z