Geological Timeline Activity Worksheet

Directions:
Fill out while completing the UC Berkeley online activity at
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/geotime/index.html
Answer the following questions as you navigate through Understanding Geologic Time.
1. How is relative age different from the actual date of an event?

2. What can radiometric dating tell us about the age of rocks that the Law of Superposition cannot?

3. How can you find the age of a layer of rock that is surrounded by layers of volcanic ash?

4. What do the periods in the geologic time scale represent?

5. Look at the diagram below representing layers of rocks and the fossils buried in them.
a) Circle the oldest layer.
b) Explain how you can tell which layer is the oldest. (Hint: The Law of Superposition might help you.)

6. Definition of Terms
Paleozoic:

Geologic Time Scale:

Era:

Law of Superposition:

Eon:

Period:

Fauna:

Mesozoic:

Flora:

Phanerozoic:

Final Portion of Activity: How much paper would it take to represent a billion? Or to represent the age of
the Earth?
The single asterisks page at the end of this worksheet contains 4,000 asterisks. If each asterisk represents
one year of earth history, it would take 250 of the asterisk pages (with 4,000 asterisks on each) to
represent 1,000,000 (1 million) years.
Given that one ream of paper contains 500 sheets and typically stands 2 inches tall, 250 sheets, about 1
inch thick, would represent 1 million years.
Now we can solve some problems that allow us to visualize earth time. Ive given the solution for the
first problem as an example.
Problems:
EXAMPLE. How thick would the paper stack of asterisk pages have to be to show the amount of time that has
passed just since the dinosaurs went extinct?
Answer: Dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. 250 sheets at 1 inch = 1 million years. SO
65 x 1 inch = 65 inches, or 5 feet, 5 inches (FYI thats as tall as me).
7. How tall would the stack have to be to show the entirety of the earth's history? (Remember, 1 million years =
1 inch, and1 billion divided by 1 million = 1000)

8. How tall would the stack be for the evolution of earliest life?

9. How tall would the stack be for the evolution of the first trilobites
2

References: Geological Time Scale and Asterisks page

Geologic Time Scale
EON
P
H
A
N
E
R
O
Z
O
I
C

ERA

EPOCH

MILLIONS
OF YRS
AGO

MAJOR BIOLOGICAL EVENTS

Holocene

.01

Rise of civilization and agriculture. Extinction

of large mammals in northern hemisphere.

Pleistocene

1.8

Modern humans appear. Four major glaciations

cause rapid shifts in ecological communities.

Pliocene

Extensive radiation of flowering plants and

mammals. First hominids appear.

Miocene

23

Coevolution of insects and flowering plants.

Dogs and bears appear.

Oligocene

38

Worldwide tropical rainforests. Pigs, cats, and

rhinos appear. Dominence of snails and
bivalves in the oceans.

Eocene

54

Early mammals abundant. Rodents, primitive

whales and grasses appear.

Paleocene

65

Early placental mammals appear; first primates;

modern birds.

Cretaceous

146

Marsupials, ants, bees, butterflies, flowering

plants appear. Mass extinction of most large
animals and many plants.

Jurassic

208

Dinosaurs and gymnosperms dominate the land;

feathered dinosaurs and birds appear. Radiation
of marine reptiles.

Triassic

245

Origin of mammals, dinosaurs and true flies.

Less diverse marine fauna.

Permian

286

Gymnosperms, amphibians dominant. Beetles,

stoneflies appear. Major extinction of 95% of
marine species and 50% of all animal families.

Pennsylvanian

325

First reptiles, cockroaches and mayflies appear.

Extensive coal swamp forests. Sponge reefs.

Missippian

360

Echinoderms, bryozoans dominant in oceans.

Early winged insects. First coal swamp forests.

Devonian

410

First amphibians. Extensive radiation of fish,

land plants. Many corals, brachiopods and
echinoderms.

Silurian

440

First spiders, scorpions, centipedes, early

insects, vascular plants, jawed fish and large
reefs appear.

Ordovician

505

PERIOD

Quaternary

C
E
N
O
Z
O
I
C

Neogene

Tertiary
Paleogene

M
E
S
O
Z
O
I
C
P
A
L
E
O
Z
O
I
C

Carboniferous

First land plants, primitive fungi, sea weed

appear. Diverse marine life: corals, molluscs,
bivalves, echinoderms, etc.
3

543

Rise of all major animal groups. Metazoan life

abundant; trilobites dominant. First fish. No
known terrestrial life.

570

Origin of multicelled organisms. First sponges,

colonial algae and soft-bodied invertebrates.

ARCHEAN EON

2,500

Oxygen levels rise as a result of photosynthetic

organisms.
First eukaryotes (single-celled algae): 1.4
billion years old.
Earliest life, anaerobic prokaryotes (bacteria,
archaeans) originate 3.5 billion years ago.

HADEAN EON

3,800-4,600

No life known. Cooling and solidifying of

Earth's crust.

Cambrian

PROTEROZOIC EON

************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************