Geological time periods

Precambrian Earliest

This was the time where  the firs single celled beings thrived and they went through extreme conditions. They later became multicelled organismed.

Cambrian 540 mya

A large amount of organisms with different shapes and sizes.

The first animals with backbones were present.

Mostly carbon dioxide in the air in this time period.

Ordovician 490 mya

There were many animals without skeletons.

Early shellfis, trlobites, nautilus, starfish and fish.

First green plants and fungi.

End of the Ice age period.

Silurian 443 mya

First advanced plants.

First Jawed fish with exoskeleton.

More shellfish.

Devonian 

First ferns.

The earliest fir trees with seeds.

The first insects that were wingless.

Amphibians.

Animals from earlier period die out due to moist and cool climate.

Carboniferus 359 mya

Enviroment has swampy lands.

First appearance of coal forest.

Early sharks, large trees larger than the ones we have now.

First reptiles and vertebrates.

Trilites dissapearing.

Glaciers form.

Appearance of winged insects.

Oxygen in the air.

Permian 290 mya

Land masses were formed in to a whole continent called pangaea.

Glaciers dissapear higher climate.

Lots of reptiles.

Cone bearing trees appear.

Beetles and flies appear.

Ocean life is in a large amount.

251 mya 95% life extinct.

Triassic 248 mya

First dinosaurs appear.

First mammals and crocodiles appear.

Modern corals and fish.

Jurassic 206 mya

Lots of different diosaurs.

Ferns an cone bearing plants.

Mammals common but small.

First birds and lizards.

Land mass, pangaea breaks up into Gondwanaland and Laurasia.

High carbon dioxide levels.

Cretaceuos 144 mya

Lots of dinosaurs including tyrannosaurus.

New types of insects.

Flowering plants appear and become plentiful.

Modern crocodiles and sharks.

Early birds appear.

Gondwana land breaks up.

Rocky mountains appear.

Carbon dioxide similar today.

Paleogene 65 mya

Modern plants.

Lots of differnent mammals.

Dinosaurs extinct.

Primitive whales.

First grasses.

Rapid changes in mammals.

Climate cools.

Ice age begins and ends during this period.

Neogene

Modern climate.

Modern mammals and birds.

Horses evolve from dog like animal.

Lots of grasses.

First apes.

Southern Alps of NZ appear.

Quaternary 1.8mya- present

Anamotically modern humans.

Human ston age.

Ice age comes and goes.

Sahar forms from grass land.

Humans begin agriculture.

Stone age, Bronze age 3300BC, Iron age1120BC.

Industial revolution leads to rise in carbon dioxide levels.