Dana's Geologic Timeline

  • Cambrian

    Cambrian

    Earliest Record of Marine life - Trilobites dominant.
  • Ordovician

    Ordovician

    Echinoderms: Starfish, Sand dollar , sea urchin and sea cucumbers. Invertebrates are dominant, Lots of mollusks. Earliest Fish without jaws and then jawed and armored fish came later.
  • Silurian

    Silurian

    Earliest terrestrial plants and animals. Tiktaalik
    Eurypterids develop.
  • Devonian

    Devonian

    Armored fish go extinct, but lots of several species of fish. Earliest amphibians and ammonites.
  • Carboniferous

    Carboniferous

    Lots of sharks and amphibians. Large swamps and coal forming forests. Earliest reptiles. Scale trees and seed ferns.
  • Permian

    Permian

    Extinction of many types of marine animals including trilobites. :(
  • Triassic

    Triassic

    Earliest Dinosaurs, lots of cycads and conifers.
  • Jurassic

    Jurassic

    Earliest birds and a lot of mammals, Dinosaurs and ammonites
  • Cretaceous

    Cretaceous

    Earliest flowering plants, high point of dinosaurs followed by their extinction. Great decress of brachiopods. Lots of of bony fish.
  • Tertiary

    Tertiary

    Earliest Placental Mammals, modern mammals, large running mammals
  • Quaternary

    Quaternary

    Large Carnivores, Neanderthals, Humans, mastodons