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