HISTORY

OF LIFE
ON EARTH
 Today we take for granted that we live among diverse
communities of animals that feed on each other. Our
ecosystems are structured by feeding relationships like
killer whales eating seals, which eat squid, which feed on
krill. These and other animals require oxygen to extract
energy from their food.

But that’s not how life on Earth used to be

 Life began on Earth at least
3.5 to 4 billion years ago, and it has been
evolving ever since.
At first, all living things on Earth were simple,
single-celled organisms.
Much later, the first multicellular organisms
evolved, and after that, Earth's biodiversity
greatly increased.
 Objectives:
To know about the accepted or important dates in our
history of life.
To know the sequence of the geologic time scale (GTS).
Characteristics of major groups of organisms present
during these time periods.
 IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE
HISTORY OF EARTH
4600 mya (million years ago) – Planet Earth formed.

4500 mya – Earth’s core and crust formed.

4400 mya – The Earth’s first oceans formed.

3850 mya – The first life appeared on Earth.

1500 mya – Oxygen began to accumulate in the Earth’s atmosphere.

700 mya – The first animals evolved. These were simple single-celled animals.
 IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE
HISTORY OF EARTH
530 mya – The first vertebrates (fish) evolved.

400 mya – The first land plants evolved.

350 mya – The first land vertebrates evolved.

225 mya – The first dinosaurs evolved from lizards.

65 mya – The dinosaurs went extinct.

130,000 years ago (0.13 mya) – Modern humans evolved.

Sequence
Of the
GEOLOGIC
TIME
SCALE
 GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE
• The extensive interval of time occupied by the geologic history of Earth.
• The geologic time scale is the “calendar” for events in Earth history. It
subdivides all time into named units of abstract time called—in descending order
of duration—eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages.
Notable People:

Nicolas Steno
- Danish Scientist, who in 1669 published the law of stratigraphy or
the science of enterpreting the strata or the layers of rock in the earths
outer surface.
 GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE
Notable People:

Giovanni Arduino
- Italian William Smith
Geologist, who in - English
1760, began Geologist, who in
naming the layers 1819, find a way to
of rocks by their identify rocks
depth and layers through
composition. fossil remains.
 EON
• Hadean
• Archean
• Proterozoic
• Phanerozoic
PRECAMBRIAN
 PRECAMBRIAN
• occurred 4.6 billion to 541 million years ago

• The Precambrian is the earliest of the geologic ages, which are

marked by different layers of sedimentary rocks.

• Precambrian time covers the vast bulk of the Earth's history,

starting with the planet's creation about 4.5 billion years ago and
ending with the emergence of complex, multicelled life-forms
almost four billion years later.
HADEAN &
ARCHEAN
ORGANISM PRESENT:
- Protoctists, plants, animals, or fungi
existed, only the metabolically
diverse bacteria.
- Most bacteria specifically
photosynthetic bacteria called
stromatolites
PROTEROZOIC
ORGANISM PRESENT:
Most organisms that emerge during this
times were prokaryotes, a group of
unicellular organisms with rudimentary
internal organization, also bacteria and blue
– green algae as well as the first oxygen –
dependent animals, the Ediacara fauna.
PHANEROZOIC
 PHANEROZOIC EON
• “Visible Life”

• Occurred 541 million years ago until present

• The time during which the majority of macroscopic organisms, algal,

fungal, plant and animal, lived. 

• Consists of three major divisions...the Cenozoic, the Mesozoic, and the

Paleozoic Eras. The "zoic" part of the word comes from the root "zoo",
which means animal.
PALEOZOIC
ERA
 PERIOD
• Cambrian
• Ordovician
• Silurian
• Devonian
• Carboniferous
• Permian
CAMBRIAN
ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Following the Precambrian mass extinction,
there was an explosion of new kinds
of organisms in the Cambrian Period
(544–505 million years ago). Many types of
primitive animals called sponges evolved. Small
ocean invertebrates called trilobites became
abundant.
ORDOVICIAN
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• the Ordovician Period (505–440 million years
ago), the oceans became filled with
invertebrates of many types. Also during this
period, the first fish evolved and plants
colonized the land for the first time. But
animals still remained in the water.
SILURIAN
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Silurian Period (440–410 million years ago),
corals appeared in the oceans, and fish
continued to evolve. On land, vascular
plants appeared. With special tissues to
circulate water and other materials, these
plants could grow larger than the
earlier nonvascular plants.
DEVONIAN
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Devonian Period (410–360 million years ago),
the first seed plants evolved. Seeds have a
protective coat and stored food to help these
plants survive. Seed plants eventually became
the most common type of land plants. In the
oceans, fish with lobe fins evolved. They could
breathe air when they raised their heads
above water. Breathing would be necessary
for animals to eventually colonize the land.
CARBONIFEROUS
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Carboniferous Period (360–290 million
years ago), widespread forests of huge
plants left massive deposits of carbon
that eventually turned to coal. The
first amphibians evolved to move out of
the water and colonize land, but they had
to return to the water to reproduce. Soon
after amphibians arose, the
first reptiles evolved. They were the first
animals that could reproduce on dry
land.
 
PERMIAN
ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Permian Period (290–245 million
years ago), all the major land masses
collided to form a supercontinent
called Pangaea. Temperatures were
extreme, and the climate was dry.
Plants and animals evolved
adaptations to dryness, such as waxy
leaves or leathery skin to prevent
water loss. The Permian Period ended
with a mass extinction.  
MESOZOIC ERA
 PERIOD
• Triassic
• Jurassic
• Cretaceous
 MESOZOIC ERA
• The Mesozoic Era is literally the era of “middle life.”

• It is also known as the age of dinosaurs. It lasted from 245

to 65 million years ago and is divided into the three
periods.

• The Mesozoic began with the supercontinent Pangaea.

TRIASSIC
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Prestosuchus had a deep skull and serrated teeth. While it
resembled a dinosaur in having a large body and upright posture, it
was actually a pseudosuchian, meaning that it was an archosaur
more closely related to modern crocodilians than to dinosaurs.

• Prestosuchus lived during the Middle Triassic in what is now Brazil.

Initially it was estimated to be around 5 meters (17 feet) but a
specimen discovered in 2010 suggest that Prestosuchus reached
lengths of nearly 7 meters (23 feet) making it one of the largest
Triassic pseudosuchians alongside Saurosuchus and Fasolasuchus.

• Prestosuchus probably walked on four legs like crocodilians, but

unlike crocodilians, it had an upright semi-erect stance with limb
bones placed below the hips.
JURASSIC
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• the temperature of the planet during this period was lethally hot
because of constant greenhouse gases emitted by volcanoes and the
lack of plants that absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Due to
them having cold blood, reptiles started to flourish all across the
continent.
• During this period, dinosaurs were few in numbers like the
Coelophysis which was a dinosaur almost as small as a chicken.
• Apatosaurus, which is considered to be one of the largest land
animals of all time, weighed as much as 41 tonnes (roughly 45 tons)
and measured up to 23 metres (about 75 feet) long, including its
long neck and tail. It had four massive and pillarlike legs, and its tail
was extremely long and whiplike.
• It may have used its long neck to reach out of the way food
as well as to keep its head away from shorter predators.
CRETACEOUS
ORGANISM PRESENT:

• Tyrannosaurus is from the Greek

word meaning Tyrant Lizard.
• T. rex is characterized by an
oversized head with forward
facing eyes, huge muscular jaws,
robust serrated teeth, a powerful
tail, and tiny arms. T rex was the
apex predator of its time.
CENOZOIC
ERA
 PERIOD
• Paleogene
• Neogene
• Quaternary
 AGE
• Danian
• Selandian
• Thanetian
• Ypresian
• Lutetian
• Bartonian
• Priabonian
• Rupelian
• Chattian
 CENOZOIC ERA
• (66 MILLION YEARS AGO AND PRESENT)
• Age of Mammals

• After the K/T explosion , the climate warmed. Thus many forest and
jungles crossed around the planet.
PALEOGENE
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• mammals were not the dominant predators
in the early Paleogene - a group of “terror
birds”, large flightless birds are found in the
fossil record
• Prosimians, insectivorous early relatives of
true primates can be found.
• The largest mammal, Pantolambda (a
primitive plant eater), was about the size of
a small pony.
• Rodents appeared late in the Paleocene
epoch of the Paleogene.
• Subsequently, flowering plants and conifers once
again became more abundant
ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Sharks ruled in the absence of
Mesozoic marine predatory reptiles

• Paleogene Megafauna
- This period produced very large
birds, the largest land mammals ever
seen on the planet (Paraceratherium),
the evolution of whales, massive
snakes (Titanoboa), and large
predators.
NEOGENE
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, 
grasslands replaced many forests . Grasses
therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous
mammals evolved alongside it, creating the
many grazing animals of today such as horses,
antelope, and bison.
• The climate continued to cool. Many of the
areas that had been covered by forests were
changing to grasslands
• Other animals developed new ways to digest the
grasses inside their bodies. These animals had
more than one stomach. They are called
ruminants.
• This new type of animal, the artiodactyl,
developed into many familiar species: camels,
bison, sheep and giraffes,
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
• Neogene Megafauna & Extinction
• -the temperature of the earth continues to cool,
thus arriving at the “ice age” time.
• Animals such as the Woolly Mammoth,
Smilodon (sabre-toothed cat), Megatherium
(Giant ground sloth) First cats (Patriofelis) and
dogs and other large herbivores.
• Most were very large and often hairy, having a
long, thick, mammoth-like fur coat covering
nearly their entire bodies to protect themselves
from the cold.
• They all went extinct in the geological blink of an
eye around 10,000 years ago for reasons not
quite known.
QUATERNARY
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
•  mammals, flowering plants, and insects
dominated the land.
• There was a major extinction of large mammals
in Northern areas at the end of the Pleistocene
Epoch. Many forms such as saber-toothed cats,
mammoths, mastodons, glyptodonts, etc.

• Species of ape, called Sahelanthropus, who

became the first known primate to walk
upright.

• Modern humans evolved about 190,000 years

ago
 ORGANISM PRESENT:
•   The Holocene is the name of the epoch that we
live in today.
• It started 11,700 years ago with the end of the
last glaciation.
• Climatologists believe we are living in an
interglacial period that will end with onset of a
new ice age.
• There have been minor warm and cool periods
in the Holocene.
• The impact of modern industrial society is
affecting the atmosphere and may have an
impact on the climate in the future.
As the world, the society we live in
continue to grow, industrialize and
advance with technology. We don’t
know what situation, phenomena
we will encounter in the future.
 GROUP 8
• Trisha Mae Saragena
• Hannah Mae Sardido
• Lorenz Androu Teo
• Rhea Gale Sardido
It is the calendar for events in
earth’s history.

GEOLOGIC TIME
SCALE
What era is the age of mammals?

CENOZOIC ERA
 It is the earliest ages of the
geologic ages which are marked by
different layers of sedimentary
rocks.
PRE - CAMBRIAN
The eon of visible life.

PHANEROZOIC EON
 A mammal like reptile which
existed during the late Triassic
period.

PLACERIAS
What are the 4 era’s from oldest to
youngest.
PRE – CAMBRIAN,
PALEOZOIC,
MESOZOIC AND
CENOZOIC
The epoch we live in today.

HOLOCENE
 Italian geologists who began
naming the layers of rocks by their
depths and composition.
GIOVANNI ARDUINO
Most organisms that emerged
during the Proterozoic eon.

PROKARYOTES
What organism is most abundant in
Cambrian period

TRILOBITES