Download Geologic Time Scale: Instructions: As you hear the following

Geologic Time Scale:
Instructions: As you hear the following information put a check mark in the box. Where there are blanks
fill in the time given by the narrator. Any boxes left blank, will be discussed post movie.
PRECAMBRIAN ERA:
5 billion years ago only our newly formed sun has formed.
Gravity pulls dust into tiny rocks, planets are being made by dust and rocks, more than 100 are circling
the sun.
__________temperatures on our newly formed earth are over 4,000 F. There is no oxygen. Earth is a
boiling ball of liquid rock, an endless ocean of lava.
Theia, a planet the size of Mars traveling 20x faster than a bullet is heading toward Earth. Both young
planets turn to liquid upon collision. Trillions of tons of liquid blast into space.
Gravity pulls this dust into a ring around Earth. Movement causes this dust ring to form our moon. The
moon is much much closer than it is today. The Earth has a 6 hour day.
___________ Earth is being bombarded by meteors. These meteors are carrying crystal the size of salt
grains that contain water. While these are only small amounts of water, there are so many meteors
hitting over the next 20 million years that small pools of water begin to puddle up. Water cools the earth
to form a thin crust.
It is possible that this is the very water that is here today.
Mega storms begin to circle the Earth. These are caused by winds. With the moon being so close huge
tides run the earth.
Over time the moon moves away and tides calm down. This is due to earth slowing its rotation.
__________ tiny islands appear boiling up through the crust to dry and become land. They will
eventually join to become the continents.
Meteors are disturbed by some unknown force which now allow them to carry minerals, carbon and
amino acids
Under water chimneys (black smokers/hydrothermal vents) form due to the minerals being brought by
meteors. Water cycles through the chimneys and releases chemicals that create life – single celled life –
bacteria.
__________ shallow oceans have formations known as stromatalites growing. These stromatalites
contain bacteria, cynobacteria that photosynthesize. As a by product oxygen begins to fill the waters
and then begins for form a thin layer that will become our atmosphere.
___________ Earth now has a 16 hour day. The atmosphere has been created.
The crust break into plates (tectonic plates) the heat from the core moving up through the mantle
moves the plates carrying the new formed islands with it.
Rodinia is formed
Stromatalites are still producing oxygen and we are now at an 18 hour day.
___________ the earth’s temperature is around 85 degrees. Heat pushes up continents splitting then
into two. Massive volcanoes pump carbon dioxide into the air mixing with the water making acid rain.
Exposed rock are weathered down and begin absorbing most of the carbon dioxide from the acid rain.
Now carbon dioxide is not enough to hold the temperature in place causing earth’s temperature to
plummet, an ice age occurs.
More ice forms reflecting the suns radiation away from earth causes temperatures to fall even lower.
Now ice covers the entire earth. It is known as SNOW BALL EARTH
__________ despite the ice covered earth, the core is still hot. Volcanoes begin to erupt through the ice
blowing out carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide fills the air. It is thick enough to trap heat and the ice
begins to melt.
Heat under the crust cause the crust to bounce up and down making cracks and fissures while more
volcanoes are produced and erupt.
Through a chemical process the ice and the sun have created oxygen yet again for earth. The
atmosphere is now warm like a normal summer day. It is now perfect for life.
PALEOZOIC ERA:
Bacteria evolves into plants on the sea floor. Multicelled creatures emerge. Increase oxygen levels in the
water allow these creatures to grow large.
Trilobites are now found in abundance. Ocean life blossoms and monsters appear.
The first organisms with spines form. There are now 10’s of thousands of species in the waters.
_________the Earth is now in Gondwana. Temperatures are around 90 degrees, oxygen levels are
similar to today yet nothing is growing on land except patches of algae.
The sun blasts earth with radiation that makes life on land impossible.
30 miles up an ozone layer is developing. It then begins to filter out the majority of the suns radiation.
Now life on land can occur. Plants begin to grow and with this large amounts of oxygen are produced.
Now a creature known as the tictalic has evolved from fins for water to legs which allow it to leave the
water for land. Other animals begin to evolve and move to the land as well.
Ferns, pine trees and now seed baring plants arrive.
Insects appear. The dragon fly, which is the size of an eagle evolve a pair of its legs into wings. Scorpions
the size of wolves, rome the earth. Creatures can reach such large sizes because of the vast amounts of
oxygen in the atmosphere.
Lizards are the first to move laying their eggs in water to laying them on land. This is a big evolutionary
step that means creatures are now free from water life.
With life comes death. The enormous amount of vegetation and creatures die and begin building up on
the earth’s ground. Through the process of the rock cycle, the dead debris is covered in sediment,
pushed down in the crust and under extreme pressure and heat from coal, the very coal that we use
today.
__________Siberian plains are covered with large lizards that have evolutionized into giants. Ancestors
of the turtle are present.
The ground begins to heat up and pressure from the earth’s core pushes up through the mantle and into
the crust. Lava begins to push up onto the land and even into the air. The entire landscape is breaking
apart.
The giant monsters are now dead, a mass extinction has occurred in the Siberian plain. While
temperatures are around 70 degrees animals on the opposite from the lava flows are now being buried
under tons of ash and fall out. These animals are suffocated or buried alive.
Sulfer fills the air, mixes with rain and forms sulfuric acid. As it rains down it burns everything it touches.
Carbon dioxide increases, the atmosphere heats up, the water begins to evaporate and all living things
are wiped out.
At this point the water begins to turn pink. The only life left is a pink algae (bacteria based) that can
survive.
Methane released increased temperatures to over 111 degrees.
MESOZOIC ERA:
________Now Pangaea has formed stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole.
Vegetation returns and new species emerge.
Dinosaurs evolve from the 5 % of those left from the Siberian eruptions. Dinosaurs repopulate the earth
The crust begins to thin; lava begins erupting again along what would be today the North American sea
board. Plates are moving away from each other and Pangaea tears apart.
Currents in the water are now pushing the minerals from the deep depths of the water up. This is food
for many newly evolved fish to follow.
Dead creatures from the water and plants that die fall to the ocean floor, again through the rock cycle
process are covered in sediment pushed down into the earth. Under extreme heat and pressure these
dead organisms will become the oil we use today.
The mid ocean ridge in the Atlantic forms.
Every time earth changes this group of inhabitants evolve and adapt to the new conditions. These land
creatures and water creatures seem to be well suited for this environment.
Mammals appear and survive. They are small and live underground. They can in no way challenge the
dinosaurs.
An asteroid 6 miles across headed toward earth, strikes earth just off the Gulf of Mexico
It destroys everything it hits. The impact of the asteroid was so intense that it vaporizes the asteroid
setting off a blast the size of billions of nuclear weapons.
The blast wave rises out, boulders from the collision blast the earth hundreds of miles away from the
impact site, earthquakes shake and tsunamis spread throughout the earth. Debris clouds cover the
earth. Temperatures rise to almost 500 degrees. Things on earth spontaneously ignite. The sun is not
seen for months and vegetation is gone.
The only living creatures to survive are the mammals. This is because they are underground in cooler
temperatures and they are not picky eaters, eating anything they can.
CENOZOIC ERA:
___________ planet is now peaceful again.
Mammals are evolving with bigger eyes and much bigger brains.
Atmosphere is like it is today. Earth has a little under a 24 hour day and average temperatures are 70
degrees.
Plates are moving India into Asia which create the Himalayans. The Himalayans are so big and tall that
the snow melt from the top gives way to many rivers. These are fresh water.
________mountains in the region continue to grow as does the vegetation. Ape like creature in the
trees. Because of the mountain growth, the weather is changed which changes the rain forest into a
savanna. Those that are in the trees (apes) now have to leave the tree to walk to find their food. This
lends to apes beginning to walk up right.
_________sea levels fall. Red Sea, small enough and shallow enough for a group to cross from Africa to
the north. This group was about 200 in number and may have led to the population of the world.
__________world is quickly changing. We are entering into the ice age. Massive glaciers move across
the earth cutting and carving the landscape as it moves.
o
Sea levels fall again leaving an ice bridge that will connect Asia to the Americas. These were the
first Americans.