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History of Life on Earth

Geological Time Scale
a record of the life forms and geological events in Earth's history.

Scientist developed the time scale by studying rock layers and fossils world
wide.

Radioactive Dating
aka Radiometric dating

Helped determine the absolute divisions in the time scale.

a technique used to determine the age of material such as rock.

Example: Carbon 14 dating

it can be used on anything that was once alive be it plants or animals to

determine the approximate age of the remains.

Many past organisms are unlike today's organisms.

They are now extinct.

These fossils document how new groups of organisms aroused from

previously existing ones.

It is still an incomplete chronicle of evolutionary change.

Because many organisms did not die at the right time at the right place to be
preserved as fossils. And of those fossils that were formed, many were
destroyed by later geologic processes.

Most of the organisms before were already destroyed and the fossils are not
preserved.

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 As a result, the known fossil record that we have right now is biased. In favor of
species that existed for a long time that were abundant and widespread in
certain kinds of environment.

Significant Time - Scale Fossils

Most organisms on earth are unicellular.

Stromatolites

Some prokaryotes bind thin films of sediments together, producing layered

rocks.

found in few warm, shallow, salty bay

Can be found in Shark Bay, Australia.

Around 3.5 billion years ago

Alga Tappania

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 a unicellular eukaryote

from Northern Australia

Around 1.5 billion years ago

Dickinsonia costata

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 a member of the Ediacaran biota

an extinct group of soft-bodied organisms.

existed 565 million years ago.

Hallucigenia

A member of a morphologically diverse group of animals.

Found in the Burgess Shale fossil bed in the Canadian Rockies.

Existed 525 million years ago

Coccosteus cuspidatus

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 A placoderm (fishlike vertebrate) that had a bony shield coverings its head
and front end.

Around 400 million years ago

Tiktaalik

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 an extinct aquatic organism that is the closest known relative of the first
vertebrates to walk on land.

375 million years ago

Dimetrodon

more closely related to mammals than to reptiles.

The spectacular "sail" on its back probably functioned in temperature

regulation.

the largest known carnivore of its day

270 million years ago

Rhomaleosaurus victor

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 a plesiosaur

These large marine reptiles were important predators

200 million years ago to 65.5 million years ago.

A Geologic Time Scale Measures the

Evolution of Life
The largest units of time are eons.

Eons include smaller eras, which in turn include periods, epochs, and stages
or ages.

Three Eons comprise the history of Earth

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 Their names refer to a second major theme of Earth's History: The Evolution of
Life

1. The Phanerozoic Eon (visible life)

spans the most recent 544 million years and includes 3 Eras well known for
their chronicle of life.

The oldest Paleozoic

The middle Mesozoic

The current Cenozoic

It is also divided into 11 periods

This eon extends from the Cambrian Period to the present Quaternary Period.

2. The Proterozoic Eon (before complex life)

precedes the Phanerozoic, extending back 2.5 billion years.

The Archean (ancient) and Hadean (unseen) Eons reach back to the
formation of the Earth.

3. Archean Eon
It was preceded by the Hadean Eon and followed by the Proterozoic Eon.
Occurring 4,000 to 2,500 million years ago.

During the Archean, the Earth's crust had cooled enough to allow the formation
of continents and the beginning of life on Earth.

4. Hadean Eon
preceding the Archean.

It began with the formation of the Earth about 4.6 billion years ago and ended.

The solar system was forming within a cloud of dust and gas known as the
solar nebula, which eventually spawned asteroids, comets, moons and planets.

The Cambrian Period

First great explosion of life recorded in the fossil record and the first period of
the Paleozoic Era.

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 The name Cambrian refers to "Wales", where these fossils were first studied.

Before this first period of the Phanerozoic, animals lacked hard body parts to
contribute to the fossil record.

Clock Analogy for some key events in

Earth's History

Origin of Solar system and Earth - more than 4 billion years ago

prokaryotes - between 3 to 4 billion years ago

atmospheric oxygen - between 2 to 3 billion years ago

Single-celled eukaryotes - 2 billion years ago

multicellular eukaryotes - between 1 to 2 billion years ago

Animals - less than 1 billion years ago

Colonization of land - animals existed first

Paleozoic

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 Mesozoic

Cenozoic

Humans

Single celled organisms might have originated earlier from 3.5 billion years
ago. It existed probably as early as 3.9 billion years ago .

Early prokaryotes were Earth's sole inhabitants from at least 3.5 billion
years ago to about 2.1 billion years ago

The oldest widely accepted fossils of eukaryotic organisms are about 2.1
billion years old.

Eukaryotic cells have more complex organization than prokaryotic cells

Eukaryotic cells have nuclear envelop, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum

and other internal structures that prokaryotes lack.

Also unlike prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells have a cytoskeleton.

A features that enables eukaryotic cells to change their shape and their by
surround and engulf other cells (phagocytosis)

The Cambrian explosion

Many present day, animal phyla appear suddenly in fossils formed early in the
Cambrian period 535 525 million years ago)

a phenomenon referred to as the Cambrian explosion.

Fossils of several groups - sponges, cnidarians (sea anemones and their

relatives), and mollusks - appear in even older rocks dating from the late
Proterozoic.

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 These animals appear to have been glaciers - means they have feed in algae
and they are not predators.

The Colonization of Land

Cyanobacteria and other photosynthesis prokaryotes coated damp terrestrial
surfaces ell over a billion years ago

Larger forms of life, such as fungi, plants, and animals, did not begin to
colonize land until about 500 million years ago.

Consequences of Continental Drift

outers the habitat which organisms lived.

Paleozoic
all of the earths landmasses were joined in the supercontinent Pangea.

Mesozoic
by the mid-mesozoic, Pangea split into northern Laurasia) and southern
Gondwana) landmasses

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 by the end of the mesozoic, Laurasia and Gondwana separated into the
present-day continent

Cenozoic
Earth's youngest major mountain range, the Himalayas. Begin to form when
India collided with Eurasia about 45 million years ago. The continents continue
to drift today.

The break-up of Pangea lead to ALLOPATRIC SPECIATION

The current distribution of fossils reflects the movement of CONTINENTAL

DRIFT.

The fossil record shows that most species that have ever lived are now
extinct.

At times, the rate of extinction has increased dramatically and caused a

mass extinction.

In each of the 5 mass extinction events, more than 50% of Earth's species
became extinct.

Five Big Mass Extinctions

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 The Permian extinction
That happened between paleozoic and mesozoic era that have 96% of
marine extinction might have been caused by volcanism which lead to global
warming and causes decrease to oceanic oxygen.

The Cretaceous mass extinction between Mesozoic and

Cenozoic Era
that happened around 65.5 million years ago include about half of all
marine species and many terrestrial plants and animals including most
dinosaurs.

Evidence of Meteorite Impacts

The presence of iridium in sedimentary rocks suggest a meteorite impact
about 65 million years ago.
The Chicxulub crater of the coast of Mexico is evidence of a meteorite that
dates to the same time.
Yucatan Peninsula

Beneath the Caribbean sea, the 65 million year old Chicxulub impact crater
measure around 180 kilometers across.

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 The Horseshoe shape of the crater and the pattern of debris in sedimentary
rock indicate that the asteroid or comet struck at a low angle from the
southeast.

This interpretation represents the impact and its immediate effect.

A cloud of hot vapor and debris could have killed many plants and animals in
North America.

Major Events in Each Major Period

Archaean
Origin of Earth

Oldest known rocks on Earth's surface

Oldest fossil of cells (prokaryotes) appear

Concentration of atmospheric oxygen begins to increase

Proterozoic Eon
Ediacaran Period
Oldest fossils of eukaryotic cells appear

Diverse algae and soft-bodied invertebrate animals appear

Phanerozoic Eon
Paleozoic Era
1.Cambrian Period

Sudden increase in diversity of many animal phyla Cambrian Explosion)

2. Ordovician Period

Marine algae abundant

3. Silurian Period

Diversification of early vascular plants

colonization of land by diverse fungi, plants, and animals

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 4. Devonian Period

Diversification of bony fishes

first tetrapod and insects appear

5. Carboniferous Period

Extensive forest of vascular plants form first seed plants appear

origin of reptiles

amphibians dominant

6. Permian Period

Radiation of reptiles

origin of most present-day groups of insects

extinction of many marine terrestrial organisms at end of period .

Mesozoic Era
 Triassic Period

Cone-bearing plants (gymnosperms) dominate landscape;

dinosaurs evolve and radiate;

origin of mammals

2. Jurassic Period

Gymnosperms continue as dominant plants;

dinosaurs abundant and diverse

3. Cretaceous Period

Flowering plants (angiosperms) appear and diversify

many groups of organisms, including most dinosaurs, become extinct at the

end of period.

Cenozoic Era
 Paleogene Period

1.1 Paleocene Epoch

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 Major radiation of mammals, birds, and pollinating insects

1.2 Eocene Epoch

Angiosperm dominance increases

Continued radiation of most present-day mammalian orders.

1.3 Oligocene Epoch

Origins of many primate groups

2. Neogene Period
2.1 Miocene Epoch

Continued radiation of mammals and angiosperms

earliest direct human ancestors.

2.2 Pliocene Epoch

Appearance of bipedal human ancestors

3. Quaternary Period
3.1 Pleistocene Epoch

Ice age

origin of genus Homo Homo Sapien)

3.2 Holocene Epoch

Historical time

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