Prehistoric times

see also:

• a brief history of the World
• How Australia evolved in geological terms and evolution
• evolution
• evolution of bacteria
• asteroid impacts on earth

• Geologic time - an overview

• 4.6 billion yrs ago: a collision between two neutron stars 1,000 light yrs away could have seeded 0.3% of earth's gold, platinum, uranium and actinides heavy elements via meteorites mixing with the solar systems then gas and dust clouds after the collison triggered the rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process - a series of nuclear reactions in which atomic nuclei collide with neutrons to synthesise elements heavier than iron

• c4,500mya formation of Earth arose after its collision with a Mars-sized impactor planet “Theia”, which resulted in the formation of Earth’s moon and its remnants remain as two large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs), in the lowermost mantle beneath Africa and beneath the Pacific Ocean ¹⁾
• it is now thought that the initial earth c4,550mya had enough hydrogen sulfide to later form all the water on earth
• earth's surface initially was mainly oceans of extremely hot magma generated from the heat from the collisions
• 4450-4000mya solidification of earth's crust (protocrust) and the formation of earth's hot interior due to the collision of ice and metallic asteroids / meteors which caused intense heat from the collision and formed the hot earth's core giving off steam (as well as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrogen) which would form an early atmosphere before the steam condensed and falling back as rain for some 30,000 years as the surface cooled, and forming the oceans which would cover 70% of the crust. This early event probably only delivered half the water we currently have today - the rest is thought to have come from later bombardments of comets.
• some believe that the prolonged ensuing metallic hailstorm ripped oxygen atoms from water producing hydrogen which formed a hydrogen rich atmosphere conducive to creating life molecules and lasting 200 million years before dissipating into space, and the free oxygen radicals then combined with iron to form ferric oxide ²⁾
• earliest dated rock found - a 4.375 billion years old zircon from Western Australia suggests that if these crystals formed from granodiorite or tonalite — materials that are rich in water — this means that Earth cooled down really quickly suggesting there was water on earth's surface even then.
• these very early rocks have long since been recycled by tectonic plate movements - the oldest known basalts such as those in Greenland are from 3,700-3,800mya and these have chemical traces which suggest they formed 700km below the surface where it is expected magma ocean crystallization would have been located. These then floated to the surface in volcanic activity in molten magma.
• “super-deep diamonds” found in Brazil from 410-660km underground presumably within a primordial rock layer within the mantle but which does not convect with other parts of the mantle. These contain microscopic amounts of helium 3 bubbles - helium 3 is only from these primordial times whereas helium 4 can be from radioactive degradation
  • *most other diamonds are formed in the transition zone which divides the upper and lower mantles and which is around 200-300km underground and are brought to the surface by volcanic activity
• the sun was only 70% of its current output and apparently not hot enough itself to melt earth's ice crust, but was thought to be highly active in producing super solar flares which could have reacted with atmospheric nitrogen, carbon dioxide and methane and created the early nitrogen-based building blocks of life such as ammonia and hydrogen cyanide as well as producing large amounts of nitrous oxide which is 300x more effective than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, which could thus explain how the early ice age melted to form the oceans.³⁾
• the moon appears to have generated it's own magnetosphere (from 4.25Ga to 2.5Ga) peaking at 4Ga when the moon was volcanically active with a tenuous atmosphere. This magnetosphere may have helped protect earth from losing its atmosphere due to solar winds.⁴⁾
• Cryptic epoch
• Basin Groups 1-9
• Nectarian epoch
• Early Imbrian epoch
• tectonic plates form at least 3 billion years ago, but perhaps more like 4.4 billion years ago according to recent argon gas studies

• the Late Heavy Bombardment of meteors ends c3800 mya
• 20-30km diameter asteroid hits Marble Bar in Western Australia c 3500 mya creating massive global earthquakes, tsunamis, tectonic plate shifts ⁵⁾
• deposition of ferric oxide in the Banded Iron Formations begins c 3,800 mya
• oceans rich in ferrous sulphate and carbon dioxide
• see evolution
• atmosphere rich in methane, carbon dioxide but poor in free oxygen
• prebiotic peptides form 3.5-3.8 billion years ago, perhaps such as:
  • 13 amino acid “nickleback” peptide capable of producing hydrogen - The peptide forms a di-nickel cluster structurally analogous to a Ni-Fe cluster in [NiFe] hydrogenase and the Ni-Ni cluster in acetyl-CoA synthase, two ancient, extant proteins central to metabolism ⁶⁾
• sulphur oxidising and sulphate reducing bacteria
• photosynthetic, oxygen producing cyanobacteria (“blue-green algae”) along with other microbes such as & archaens form microbial mats which over time become layered on a bed of calcium carbonates deposited from the carbon dioxide rich oceans (limestone) creating stromatolites start to oxygenate atmosphere
  • fossils of the earliest known stromatolites, about 3.5 billion years old, are to be found near Marble Bar in the Pilbara
  • cyanobacteria became to be the most abundant form of life on earth for some 2 billion years until the oxygen rich atmosphere combined with predator animal life forms impacted their existence
  • most of the oxygen released was bound up by decaying organic matter or bound to oceanic iron forming layers of iron oxide deposits on the new land masses (eg. the Kimberley Ranges of Western Australia)
• Isuan era
• Swazian era
• Randian era

• Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) 2400 mya
  • having exhausted the oxygen sinks in the oceans (eg. iron and organic matter), the further photosynthetic production of oxygen begins to build an oxygen rich atmosphere and reduce the carbon dioxide concentrations, and presumably wiping out much of the obligate anaerobic organisms on earth.
  • deposition of ferric oxide in the Banded Iron Formations which had started around 3,800 mya, cease by 1,800 mya
  • possible role of vulcanism and shifting of tectonic plates to release CO₂ resulting in global warming, increased rainfall and weathering and triggered a boom in cyanobacteria and carbonates and, later, carbon-13 ⁷⁾
• Lomagundi event 2300mya
  • sudden spike in carbon-13 isotopes
• Vredefort asteroid impact crater Sth Africa 2000mya - at 20-25km asteroid size (double the height of Mt Everest!) one of the largest since the Hadian era
• early period - multi-celled organisms, soft-bodied invertebrates further oxygenate atmosphere
• supercontinent Columbia or Nuna formed 2,000-1,800 mya then broke up 1,500-1,300 mya
• supercontinent Rodinia is thought to have formed 1,000 mya and broke up into 8 continents around 600mya
• Pre-Cambrian:
• Huronian era
  • the free oxygen reacted with the atmospheric methane, a greenhouse gas, reducing its concentration by 700mya caused the earth to dramatically cool, and thereby triggering the Huronian glaciation, possibly the longest snowball Earth episode
  • global volcanic activity ejected massive amounts of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere so that by 630 mya the greenhouse effects of the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere was able to trap sufficient heat to end this intense global glaciation
• Animikean era
• Riphean era
• Sinian era
  • Sturtian period
  • Vendian period - algae, Ediacaran soft-bodied fauna

• Paleozoic era
  • Cambrian period - marine invertebrates (snails, trilobites), seaweed, lichen
  • Ordovician period - marine vertebrates (fish), coral
  • Silurian period - air-breathing animal, land plants
  • Devonian period - amphibia, insects, woody plants (ferns, scale trees, forests)
  • Carboniferous period - spiders, cockroaches, reptiles, conifers
  • Permian period - disappearance of many marine forms including the trilobites, rapid evolution of reptiles
  • supercontinent Pangea formed 300 mya and began to break up 200 mya forming the two continents, Laurasia in the northern hemisphere, and Gondwana in the southern hemisphere, separated by the Tethys Sea
• Mesozoic era:
  • “age of the reptiles”
  • Triassic period - mammals, dinosaurs, pterosaurs and the 1st feathers c250mya, turtles
  • Jurassic period - more dinosaurs & reptiles, birds, moth, fly, beetle, grasshopper, termite, lobster, shrimp
    • Gondwana begins to break up 184 mya
  • Cretaceous period - marsupials, placental mammals, crabs, deciduous trees, flowering plants, disappearance of dinosaurs
    • Sth America begins to drift westwards away from South Africa 130 mya
    • East Gondwana begins to separate with India moving north 120 mya
    • Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event coincides with the Madagascar block breaking off from India and the eruption of the Deccan basalts which started 250,000 yrs before the asteroid impact in Mexico and continued for another 500,000 years spewing 1.5 million sq km of lava and presumably changed the global chemistry wiping out plankton and much of the rest of Cretacean life ⁸⁾
    • New Zealand separates from Antarctica between 130-85mya
    • Australia begins to separate from Antarctica 80 mya and especially around 40mya
• Cenozoic era:
  • “age of the mammals”
  • Australia/Papua New Guinea continent moves further north 55mya, rotating around it's axis, and by 45mya, finally separated from Antarctica fully, allowing ocean currents to flow and cooling Antarctica while making Australia drier, while the Indian Plate collided with the Asian Plate forming the Himalayas
  • Tertiary period:
    • Paleogene:
      • Paleocene epoch - small mammals
        • Greenland separates from Europe mainland 55 mya
      • Eocene epoch - horse, rhinoceros, camel, rodent, monkey, modern birds, aquatic mammals
      • Oligocene epoch - first true carnivore mammals, first anthropoid apes
        • Sth America separates from Antarctica 30mya causing climate changes as the southern ocean could now become circumpolar instead of being forced into the tropics, and thus Antarctica becomes a frigid continent as it is today.
    • Neogene:
      • Miocene epoch - mastodon, grasses
      • Pliocene epoch - higher mammals
      • Papua New Guinea's northward movement into the Pacific Plate around 15 mya causes the New Guinea Highlands to form, further causing Australia to dry out due to the rain shadow effect
      • South America becomes connected to North America via the Isthmus of Panama, cutting off a circulation of warm water
      • two back-to-back nearby supernovae at end of pliocene may have tripled radiation doses for thousands of years due to a 20-fold increase in high energy muon particles striking earth and this may have increased rate of DNA mutations and thus the rate of evolution ⁹⁾
  • Quaternary period:
    • Pleistocene epoch: - ice age, “age of man”
      • Paleolithic - old stone age
    • Holocene epoch: - recent times
      • Neolithic - new stone age
• see also:
  • a brief history of the World
  • ancient history
  • Glossary
  • history of the sun
    • http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/21173/page/2 
    • sun orbits the galactic centre once every 250 million years

• Geologic time has been divided into parts and sub-parts as follows:
  • eon
    • era
      • period
        • sub-period
          • epoch
            • age

• 600-6000 million yrs ago
• earth formed (~6,000 million yrs ago???)
• earth spun more rapidly on its axis so a day was only 4-5 hours and the moon was much closer, while giant meteorites impacted earth - the only constant environment was the deep ocean floor protected from UV radiation with little variation in temperature or pH which allowed life to begin, catalysed by minerals which would form the basis of many enzymes.
• procaryotic cells (~4,650 million yrs ago)
• eucaryotic cells (~3,500 million yrs ago
• algae life forms (~1,500 million yrs ago)
• neoproterozoic: at least 4 extreme climate reversals from global ice to hot house effect of carbon dioxide (750-580 million years ago):
  • the more of earth covered by ice, the more the sun's heat is reflected making the earth colder still and creating more ice
    • Sturtian glaciation 717-660mya: snowball earth - appears to be due to historically low volcanic carbon dioxide emissions as a result of plate tectonic reorganisation, aided by weathering of a large pile of volcanic rocks in what is now Canada; a process that absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide causing carbon dioxide to fall below 200ppm (less than half current levels and a level which causes glaciation)- these two processes were by far the main determinants of greenhouse gases at the time ¹⁰⁾
  • but the more ice there is, the less liquid water there is to convert carbon dioxide from volcanic activity to carbonates, thereby eventually creating a greenhouse effect which reverses an ice age if atmosphere levels reach 350x current levels, this would take tens of millions of years of volcanic activity. The greenhouse effect (further assisted by greenhouse effect of increasing water vapour) would drive surface temperatures to almost 50deg C !!
  • rain would then decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide levels creating seawater highly saturated in calcium carbonate
• The first abundant fossils date from about 600 million years ago. The reason for the scarcity of earlier fossils is not fully understood, but in Precambrian times most species of animals probably were soft-bodied, and shells and other hard body parts suitable for preservation did not develop until the Cambrian period.
• Ediacaran fauna, distinctive grouping of fossils dating from and existing only during Precambrian time. The fauna arose about 670 million years ago and is named for Australia's Ediacara hills, where it was first discovered. Such fossils were later found to be widespread. Ranging up to about 1 m (about 3 ft) long, the animals lived in shallow seas and had soft bodies that bear little resemblance to later life forms. Conceivably they may represent an early, extinct branch in the evolutionary history of animals
  • Mistaken Point in Newfoundland, dating from 579 to 565 million years ago
  • Nilpena in South Australia, dating from 555 to 550 million years ago
  • White Sea in Russia, dating also from 555 to 550 million years ago
  • Farm Swartpunt in southern Namibia, is dated at 545 million years ago and shows evidence that perhaps the newly evolving Cambrian marine animals were creating ecological stress to the Ediacaran community and perhaps were the cause of their extinction ¹¹⁾

• 230-600 million yrs ago
  • Cambrian period:
    • 500-600 million yrs ago
    • Multiple collisions between the earth's crustal plates gave rise to the first supercontinent, known as Gondwanaland.
    • Steptoean Positive Carbon Isotope Excursion “SPICE” event: newly exposed rock was chemically weathered by acid rain pulling carbon dioxide from the air, releasing oxygen, climate cooled, oceans cooled and allowed phytoplankton to flourish which created more oxygen through photosynthesis
    • Animal life was entirely confined to the seas - marine invertebrates
    • With the exception of the vertebrates, all the phyla of the animal kingdom existed by the end of the Cambrian times:
      • 1st branching:
        • poriferans
        • 2nd branching:
          • cnidarians
          • 3rd branching:
            • 4th branching:
              • echinoderms
              • chordates
            • 5th branching:
              • 6th branching:
                • brachiopods
                • later branching:
                  • platyhelminths
                  • futher branching:
                    • annelids
                    • mollusks
              • 7th branching:
                • priapulids
                • further branching:
                  • nematodes
                  • arthropods
    • The characteristic animals of the Cambrian period were the trilobites, a primitive form of arthropod, which reached their fullest development in this period and became extinct in Permian times.
    • Among the mollusks, the earliest snails appeared in this period, as did the cephalopod mollusks.
    • Flora was entirely confined to such low forms as seaweeds in the oceans and lichens on land.
  • Ordovician period:
    • 425-500 million yrs ago
    • The predecessor of today's Atlantic Ocean began to shrink as the continents of that time drifted closer together.
    • The most characteristic animals of this period were the graptolites, which were small, colonial coelenterates.
    • The first vertebrates (marine vertebrates - primitive fishes) and the earliest corals emerged.
    • The largest animal was a cephalopod mollusk that had a shell about 3 m (about 10 ft) in length.
    • Flora resembled that of the Cambrian period.
    • 450mya, more tectonic activity, most likely, the rise of the Appalachian Mountains, brought on a deadly ice age causing more than half of the Ordovician life forms to become extinct
  • Silurian period:
    • 405-425 million yrs ago
    • The most important evolutionary development of this period was the first air-breathing animal, a scorpion.
    • The first fossil records of vascular plants, that is, land plants with conducting tissue, appeared. They were simple plants without differentiation into stem and leaf.
  • Devonian period:
    • 345-405 million yrs ago
    • Age of the fishes
    • The dominant forms of animal life were fish of various types, including shark, lungfish, armored fish, and primitive forms of ganoid (hard-scaled) fish that are believed to have been the evolutionary ancestor of the amphibians.
    • Fossil remains found in Pennsylvania and Greenland indicate that early forms of amphibia may already have existed during the period.
    • Lower animal forms included coral, starfish, sponge, and trilobite.
    • Prototaxites up to 8m tall terrestrial fungi when other terrestrial vegetation were less than 1m tall
    • The earliest known insect was found in Devonian rock.
    • The Devonian is the first period from which any considerable number of fossilized plants has been preserved.
      • During this period, the first woody plants developed, and before the period had closed, the land-growing forms included seed ferns, ferns, scouring rushes, and scale trees, the modern relative of which is club moss. Although the present-day equivalents of these groups are mostly small plants, they developed into treelike forms in the Devonian period.
      • Fossil evidence indicates that forests existed in Devonian times, and petrified stumps of certain of the larger plants from the Devonian period are 60 cm (24 in) in diameter. 1st known mini “forest” dates to 385mya in the USA. A large 365mya old forest of lycopsid trees was discovered in China.
  • Carboniferous period:
    • 280-345 million yrs ago
    • named after the numerous coal beds which resulted from warm, humid climates which fostered lush forests in swamplands
    • first part of this period, known as the Mississippian in US geology:
      • A group of sharks, the Cestraciontes or shell-crushers, were dominant among the larger marine animals.
      • The predominant group of land animals was the Stegocephalia, an order of primitive, lizardlike amphibians that developed from the lungfish.
      • The various forms of land plants became diversified and grew larger, particularly those that grew in low-lying swampy areas.
    • second part - known as the Pennsylvanian in U.S. geology:
      • evolution of the first reptiles, a group that developed from the amphibians and that was completely independent of a water environment.
      • other land animals included spiders, snails, scorpions, more than 800 species of cockroach, and the largest insect ever evolved, a species resembling the dragonfly, with a wingspread of about 74 cm (about 29 in).
      • The largest plants were the scale trees, the tapered trunks of which were as much as 1.8 m (6 ft) in diameter at the base and 30 cm (100 ft) high. Primitive gymnosperms known as cordaites, which had pithy stems surrounded by a woody shell, were more slender but even taller.
      • The first true conifers developed - advanced gymnosperms.
  • Permian period:
    • 230-280 million yrs ago
    • The earth's land areas became welded into a single landmass that geologists call Pangaea, and in the North American region the Appalachian Mountains were formed.
    • The chief features of the animal life were the disappearance of many forms of marine animals and the rapid spread and evolution of the reptiles.
    • In general, reptiles were of two types:
      • lizardlike reptiles that lived wholly on land
      • sluggish, semiaquatic types.
    • a comparatively small group of reptiles that evolved in this period, the Theriodontia, was the group from which the mammals later developed.
    • the predominant vegetation was composed of ferns and conifers.
    • it is now thought by many that the end of the Permian age 250m yrs ago (ie. before dinosaurs) was due to a NEO which hit earth and plunged earth into darkness & freezing cold, caused volcanoes & released hydrogen sulphide gas, wiping out 90% of sea life & 80% of land life globally - the “Great Dying” in addition to setting off the separation of the continents from the unified Gondwana land mass a 150m yrs later. The possible sites are either:
      • Wilkes land region of east Antartica - 483km wide crater hidden more than 1.6km beneath the Antartic ice sheet and has a 321km wide plug of mantle - a mascon. The rift between Antartica and Australia passes directly through this crater. (published 2006)
      • offshore from NW of Western Australia when it was part of Pangaea resulting in the Bedout High underwater crater which is buried beneath thousands of metres of rock (discovered by oil drilling samples). The meteor is estimated to have been at least 10km diameter, leaving an impact crater of 200km diameter.

• 65-230 million yrs ago
  • Triassic period:
    • 181-230 million yrs ago
    • the reappearance of Gondwanaland, as the supercontinent, Pangaea, split apart into northern (Laurasia) and southern (Gondwanaland) supercontinents after the early dinosaurs has established themselves.
    • mammals, more reptiles such as turtles
    • early dinosaurs seldom exceeded 4.5m in length. The Ingentia prima (237-201mya) is the earliest large long-necked dinosaur and weighed 7-10 tonnes. It was found in Argentina in the Late Triassic and predating the Brontosaurus by 47 million years
    • first ancestors of the modern bony fishes, Teleostei, made their appearance
    • the dominant vegetation was composed of various evergreens, such as ginko, conifer, and palm. Small scouring rushes and ferns continued to exist, but the larger members of these groups had now become completely extinct.
  • Jurassic period:
    • 135-181 million yrs ago
    • As Gondwanaland rifted apart, the North Atlantic Ocean widened and the South Atlantic was born.
    • dinosaurs:
      • four distinct types, or tribes:
        • heavy four-footed sauropods, such as Apatosaurus;
        • two-footed carnivorous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus;
        • two-footed vegetarian dinosaurs such as Trachodon;
        • four-footed armored dinosaurs, such as Stegosaurus.
    • marine reptiles included:
      • plesiosaurs, a group that had broad, flat bodies like those of turtles, with long necks and large flippers for swimming;
      • ichthyosaurs, which had scaly bodies;
      • primitive crocodiles
    • winged reptiles were represented by Pterosaurus, popularly referred to as pterodactyl
    • The earliest confirmed fossil identified as a bird, Archaeopteryx lithographica, is from the Late Jurassic
    • evolution of the insects resulted in the development of a number of the modern orders, including moth, fly, beetle, grasshopper, and termite.
    • Shellfish included lobster, shrimp, and ammonite, as well as the extinct group of belemnites that resembled squid and had cigar-shaped internal shells.
    • The flora of the Jurassic period was dominated by the cycad.
  • Cretaceous period:
    • 65-135 million yrs ago
    • The Rocky Mountains began to rise in North America
    • other mammals evolved: 1st marsupials, 1st placental mammals
    • other shellfish evolved: crabs
    • several modern varieties of fish evolved
    • ants evolve into two main subfamilies 80-100mya in association with the rise in forest ground litter and soil associated with flowering plants (angiosperms):
      • Sphecomyrminae - now extinct
      • precursor of modern ants which during this period evolved into subfamilies including:
        • Myrmiciinae - genus Myrmecia - jumper ants and bull dog ants (only survived in Australia)
        • Myrmicinae - 
        • Formicinae -
        • Ponerinae 
        • Dolichoderinae - includes the invasive Argentine ant which now has a super-colony 100km wide under Melbourne, Australia
    • fifth tribe of dinosaurs evolved such as horned dinosaurs-Triceratops
    • 74mya, ice-free polar regions, mild climates, seas at full flood separated:
      • the North American continent into sections via the north-south running “Western Interior Seaway” along the east of the Rocky Mountains which covered Nebraska, Kansas, Texas & the “Hudson Seaway” separating Ontario, Qebec & Newfoundland in the south from the “Northwest territories” which were themselves separated from Greenland by the “Labrador Seaway”
      • North Atlantic flooded south-eastern USA up to near the Appalachian Mountains
      • Asia from Europe
    • development of deciduous and flowering plants (angiosperms):
      • fig, magnolia, sassafras, and poplar were among the earliest to evolve.
      • mid-Cretaceous fossils include remains of beech, holly, laurel, maple, oak, plane tree, and walnut.
      • by the end of the period, many of the modern varieties of trees and shrubs had made their appearance; they represented more than 90 percent of the known plants of the period. Some paleontologists believe that these deciduous woody plants first evolved in Jurassic times but grew only in upland areas, where conditions were unfavorable for fossil preservation.
• global mass extinction event of 65-66mya when 75% of animal species died out including all the dinosaurs - this is now confirmed to be due to a NEO asteroid of 15km diameter (100 million megatons energy) hitting Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula where it created a 200km crater. There had been a preceding increased volcanic activity in the Deccan which was in fact responsible for a brief warming phase 200,000 years before the mass extinction, but this had no long-term effect on life and the climate.

• 65million yrs ago to today - the “age of the mammals”
• North America separates from South America
  • marsupials in South America (which had originated in North America but which became extinct 20mya) diversified and migrated into Antarctica and Australia
• Tertiary period:
  • North America's land link to Europe was broken, but its ties to South America were forged toward the end of the period.
  • Paleogene:
    • Paleocene epoch:
      • 54-65 million yrs ago
      • 7 groups of 4-footed, 5-toed, small mammals originating in Nth Asia:
        • only 4 groups survived:
          • marsupials
          • insectivores
          • primates
          • rodents
        • the 3 groups that became extinct are:
          • the creodonts, which were the ancestors of the modern carnivores;
          • the amblypods, which were small, heavy-bodied animals;
          • the condylarths, which were light-bodied herbivorous animals with small brains.
    • Eocene epoch:
      • 38-54 million years ago
      • a number of direct evolutionary ancestors of modern animals appeared:
        • Among these animals, all of which were small in stature, were the horse, rhinoceros, camel, rodent, and monkey.
        • The creodonts and amblypods continued to develop during the epoch, but the condylarths became extinct before its close.
        • The first aquatic mammals, the ancestors of the modern whales
        • modern birds as eagle, pelican, quail, and vulture.
      • In these times and continuing to the present, the changes in vegetation were chiefly in the migration of vegetation types in response to climate changes.
      • 43-46mya: asteroid impact creates the Silverpit crater under the North Sea
    • Oligocene epoch:
      • 26-38 million years ago
      • major extinction event - all five mammal groups suffered huge losses around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary after Earth’s climate shifted from swampy to icy resulting in the loss of over 60% of Afro-Arabian mammalian species.
      • most of the archaic mammals disappeared to be replaced by modern mammals
      • the rodents and primates that reappeared after a few million years had different teeth. These were new species, who ate different things, and had different habitats.
      • first true carnivores, resembling dogs and cats, evolved
      • The first anthropoid apes, but they became extinct in North America during the epoch.
      • Two extinct groups of animals flourished during the Oligocene epoch:
        • the titanotheres, which are related to the rhinoceros and the horse;
        • the oreodonts, which are small, doglike, grazing animals
  • Neogene:
    • Miocene epoch:
      • 12-26 million years ago
      • the first appearance of the grasses. These plants, which were ideally suited for forage, encouraged the growth and development of grazing animals such as horse, camel, and rhinoceros, which were abundant during the epoch.
      • the mastodon evolved, and in Europe and Asia a gorillalike ape, Dryopithecus, was common.
      • Various types of carnivores, including cats and wolf-like dogs, ranged over many parts of the world.
    • Pliocene epoch:
      • 2.5-12 million yrs ago
      • higher mammals
      • western Victorian volcanic activity
      • ~5mya - a nearby star (within 90 light years) goes supernova sprinkling Earth with a thin layer of Fe60, an iron isotope produced only by supernova detonations, and many UV-sensitive marine plants and animals died.
      • these two back-to-back nearby supernovae at end of pliocene may have tripled radiation doses for thousands of years due to a 20-fold increase in high energy muon particles striking earth and this may have increased rate of DNA mutations and thus the rate of evolution ¹²⁾
      • Isthmus of Panama emerged to reconnect North and South America 3mya allowing oppossums to migrate to Nth America
• Quaternary period:
  • Pleistocene epoch:
    • 10,000-2.5 million yrs ago
    • the ice age:
      • spreading of glacier ice over more than one-fourth of the land surface of the earth
      • while snow and ice accumulated in higher latitudes, rainfall increased in the lower latitudes, allowing plant and animal life to flourish in areas of northern and eastern Africa that have since become arid and barren.
      • it is possible a cause of these ice ages is an interstellar cloud of hydrogen and dust which appeared around 2-3mya which effectively moved Earth outside of the heliosphere. This is thought to have arisen because the solar system may have passed through the Local Ribbon of Cold Clouds in the constellation Lynx.¹³⁾
    • emergence of humans thus the “Age of man”, large mammals “megafauna”
    • In Europe:
      • antelope, lion, and hippopotamus appeared.
      • carnivores included badger, fox, lynx, otter, puma, and skunk, as well as now-extinct species as the giant saber-toothed tiger
    • In Nth America:
      • buffalo, elephant, mammoth, and mastodon appeared, however the mammoth and mastodon became extinct towards end of this epoch.
      • the first bears made their appearance as migrants from Asia
      • The armadillo and ground sloth migrated from South America
      • many species of mammals became extinct in North America, including the llama, camel, tapir, horse, and yak
    • In Asia and Oceania:
      • 790,000yrs ago: massive Laos impact crater event (the biggest in the past 2.5 million years) sends tektites of obsidian across 15% of earth's surface - the Australasian field and may have created a localised area of ongoing vulcanism
      • 74,000yrs ago: the Toba super-volcanic eruption on the Indonesian island of Sumatra - the most powerful eruption in the past two million years, spreading glass shards widely across India, and to Africa, and may have caused a 6-10 yr long volcanic winter which may have reduced the size of Homo sapiens to 10,000 individuals from an effective population of about 100,000 (although it seems South Africa may have been spared and served as a refuge), and then the atmospheric debris blocking sunlight may have cooled earth for a thousand years
      • c40,000yrs ago: “AustraloPapuans” migrate from South-east Asia through Indonesia to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and to Australia where they become “Australian” indigenous people
        • Australian megafauna species become extinct
    • Paleolithic “old stone age”:
      • 10,000-1,000,000 yrs ago
      • beryllium-10 spikes at 33,000 and 60,000 yrs ago suggest possible nearby supernovas causing dramatic rise in cosmic ray flux.
        • 41,000yrs ago - a supernova at a distance of 250 light years may have wiped out mammoths
          • mammoth tusks dated at 34,000 years old were found to contain tiny impact craters, apparently produced by slightly radioactive, iron-rich grains moving at 10,000km/s – velocities typical of supernova ejecta
      • migration of humans across continents
        • humans crossed over into the New World by means of the Bering land bridge.
      • the Late Glacial Interstadial, an interval of relative warmth that lasted from 14,670 to 12,900 BP
        • sea levels start to rise as ice melts
        • some suggest that relatively advanced civilisations developed during this period in terms of stone masonry, astronomy, engineering but these were wiped out by the sea level rise of around 400 feet most of the rise followed the Younger-Dryas period, however they perhaps sailed to various places around the world and spread their knowledge, including that of agriculture
          • many cultures have creation mythology of sea-faring people who came after the floods and who taught them agriculture and stone work etc
          • this civilisation is also depicted by Plato's record of the lost city of Atlantis which was recorded by his ancestors when they had visited Egypt and which would fit with being around this time before it flooded
      • Younger-Dryas period
        • 12,900 to 11,700 years BP
        • something major happened at 12,800yrs ago that we have yet to understand but probably was a comet exploding in the atmosphere
          • see Shocked quartz at the Younger Dryas onset (12.8 ka) supports cosmic airbursts/impacts contributing to North American megafaunal extinctions and collapse of the Clovis technocomplex
        • a sudden return to glaciation which had widespread global climactic wintering effects and flooding
        • megafauna and Clovid paleoindian culture extinction event - the existence of mammoths, mastodons, horses, camels, dire wolves, American lions, short-faced bears, sloths, and tapirs terminated abruptly at the Allerød-Younger Dryas boundary
        • causes may be:
          • significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic “Conveyor”
          • result of a stream of comet impacts on the Arctic ice cap, melting the Laurentide ice sheet, although this seems to be rejected by scientists at present as there is apparently no geological evidence of comet impacts but then there probably wouldn't be if they hit the ice cap, and this may be a case of premature closure of an hypothesis ¹⁴⁾
            • this massive sudden flooding event could also explain the Scablands of NW USA
            • this would be supported by Zorastrian beliefs “serpent in the sky” and similar beliefs across the globe with most megalithic structures of around 9600BC around the world (Malta, Göbekli Tepe in Türkiye, Indonesia, America eg. Serpentine Mount, and in Mexico) demonstrating astronomic features and prominent serpents, often depicted as falling from the sky
            • the sequential comet impacts theory is also supported by the widespread finding across Nth America and Europe of a black carbon, cubic diamond nanoparticles, and iridium rich “extinction” black mat boundary layer dated to 10,800BC with fossils of Rancholabrean megafauna below it but none above it other than bison and nor is there evidence of Clovis paleoindian culture artefacts in Nth America in or above this black mat.
        • rapidly ended over a period of 40 years around 9600BC with a return to warming conditions which presumably stimulated the building of the megaliths
  • Holocene epoch “Recent times - the current warm period”:
    • present - 9701BC
    • Neolithic “new stone age”:
      • 4,000 - 10,000 yrs ago
      • 8000yrs ago: West Antarctic Ice Sheet shrank suddenly and dramatically over a period of only 200yrs ¹⁵⁾
        • the land under it is below sea level and slopes downward, when warm water gets underneath, it can melt very fast in an unstoppable runaway process
      • melting ice caused the sea level to rise a hundred feet or more, drowning large areas of land and broadening the continental shelf of eastern North America, isolating regions from each other such as:
        • Britain from Europe and the submerging of Doggerland
        • Malta from Sicily
        • Tasmania from mainland Australia
      • agriculture, domesticated animals
      • 3000BC - Lapita culture people from Taiwan, the first Polynesians, migrate to Phillipines (2500BC), northern Papua New Guinea (1500BC), Melanesian Islands (1400BC but only limited interactions with the Melanesians), Fiji (900BC), Samoa (800BC, where the Polynesian cultures and religion gestated), and then from the Cook Islands to Tahiti (AD700), Hawaii (AD900), Easter Islands (AD900) and New Zealand (AD1200)
      • 2500BC - 500BC - AustraloPapuans “Melanesians” migrate to Melanesian islands prior to the Lapitas and there was some mixing of genes
    • Written history:
      • present - 4,000 yrs ago