地质史

It all started with the Big Bang!

大爆炸（Big Bang）13798±37

大爆炸是描述宇宙诞生初始条件及其后续演化的宇宙学模型，这一模型得到了当今科学研究和观测最广泛且最精确的支持。宇宙学家通常所指的大爆炸观点为：宇宙是在过去有限的时间之前，由一个密度极大且温度极高的太初状态演变而来的（根据2013年普朗克卫星所得到的最佳观测结果，宇宙大爆炸距今137.98 ± 0.37亿年），并经过不断的膨胀到达今天的状态。

• 银河系诞生13200

冥古宙（Hadean） 4570~4000?

冥古宙（Hadean）开始于地球形成之初，结束时间依据不同的文献有不同的定义。冥古宙最初是普雷斯顿·克罗德（Preston Cloud）于1972年提出的，原本是用来指已知最早岩石之前的时期。冥古宙的最后一个代对应为月球地质年代中的早雨海世，以月球的东海撞击事件为结束时间(约为38.4亿年)，这也是内太阳系的后期重轰击期的结束标志。在整个冥古宙，地球从46亿年前形成，从一个炽热的岩浆球逐渐冷却固化（计算表明仅需1亿年），出现原始的海洋、大气与陆地，但仍然是地质活动剧烈、火山喷发遍布、熔岩四处流淌，在41亿年前到38亿年前地球持续遭到了大量小行星与彗星的轰击，根据同时期月球撞击坑推算（月球面对地球的那一面的大部份大型盆地如危海、宁静海、晴朗海、肥沃海和风暴海也都是于此一时期撞击形成的），地球遭遇了：

• 形成22000个或者更多的直径大于20公里的撞击坑
• 形成约40个直径约1000公里的撞击盆地
• 形成几个直径约5000公里的撞击盆地
• 约每100年造成严重的环境破坏

冥古宙结束后，内太阳系不再有大规模撞击事件前。

隐生代 4570~4150

• 太阳诞生 4570
• 已发现的最古老的岩石（加拿大） 4280
• 月球形成 4527±10
• 地球形成 4540±50

原生代 4150~3920

• 最早的生命 4000

酒神代 3920~3850

雨海代 3850~3800

太古宙Ar 4000?~2500

太古宙（Archean）始于内太阳系后期重轰炸期的结束，地球岩石开始稳定存在并可以保留到现在。太古宙结束于25亿年前的大氧化事件，以甲烷为主的还原性的太古宙原始大气转变为氧气丰富的氧化性的元古宙大气，并导致了持续3亿年的地球第一个冰河时期——休伦冰河时期。太古宙时期有细菌和低等蓝菌存在。

始太古宙 3800

• 简单的单细胞生物

古太古代 3600

• 蓝藻出现，光合作用出现 3500

中太古宙 3200

新太古宙 2800

• 大氧化事件 2600

元古宙Pt 2500~541.0±1.0

元古宙（Proterozoic），又称元古代、原生代，开始于同位素年龄2500Ma，结束于542.0±1.0Ma。元古宙的大气已经是氧气含量丰富。这个时期已经发现了许多菌类、藻类植物化石和古代微生物化石，因此也被称为“菌藻时代”。

元古宙包括了古元古代、中元古代、新元古代。元古代中期发生了全球性的大冰期，世界各地都发现了冰川遗迹。在元古代末期，开始出现了腔肠动物、环节动物和节肢动物，但这些动物都没有坚硬的骨骼，所以化石上只是留下印痕等遗迹。

元古代也曾发生广泛的地壳运动，在前期是地球主要的造山时期。在中国北方为“吕梁运动”。元古代时期的地层中蕴藏有丰富的铁矿、铜矿和稀土金属矿物。

古元古代Pt1 2500~1600

成铁纪 2500~2300

层侵纪 2300~2050

造山纪 2050~1800

固结纪 1800~1600

中元古代Pt2 1600~1000

盖层纪 1600~1400

延展纪 1400~1200

狭带纪 1200~1000

• 有性繁殖出现 1200~1000

新元古代Pt3 1000~541.0±1.0

拉伸纪（青白口纪）Qn 1000~850

成冰纪（南华纪） 850~635

• Snowball Earth >650

埃迪卡拉纪（震旦纪）Z 635~541.0±1.0

显生宙Ph 541.0±1.0~Now

显生宙是从寒武纪开始出现大量较高级动物以后至今的地史阶段地质年代名称。指寒武纪以来的时期。从距今大约5.7亿年前延续至今。包括古生代、中生代和新生代。5.7亿年前，寒武纪始，生物逐渐向较高级的发展阶段进化，动物已具有外壳和清晰的骨骼结构，故称显生宙。

古生代Pz 541.0±1.0~252.17±0.06

古生代意为远古的生物时代，持续约3亿年。对动物界来说，这是一个重要时期。它以一场至今不能完全解释清楚的进化拉开了寒武纪的序幕。寒武纪动物的活动范围只限于海洋，但在古生代的廷续下，有些动物的活动转向干燥的陆地。古生代后期，爬行动物和类似哺乳动物的动物出现，古生代以迄今所知最大的一次生物绝灭宣告完结。

寒武纪（Cambrian, 541.0±1.0 ~ 485.4±1.9Ma）

在寒武纪时，具有硬壳的动物第一次大量出现，许多大陆都被浅海所泛滥， 超大陆刚瓦那(Gondwana)则正在南极附近形成。

形成于前寒武纪末期(大约距今六亿年前)的超大陆潘诺西亚（Pannotia），在古生代的时候开始分裂，一个新的海洋——巨神海(Iapetus Ocean)在劳伦西亚(Laurentia,北美)、波罗地(Baltica,北欧)和西伯利亚(Siberia)这几个古大陆之间扩张。超大陆冈瓦那(Gondwana)则在泛非褶皱带上组合而成当时最大的大陆，范围从赤道延伸到南极。

在奥陶纪时期，温暖的海水把石灰岩和盐岩沉积在冈瓦那大陆的赤道地区(Australia澳洲、India印度、China中国与Antarctica南极洲)，同时在冈瓦那大陆的南极地区(Africa非洲与South America南美)则沉淀了冰河的沉积及冰漂的碎屑。

• 已知最古老的脊椎动物-昆明鱼（中国澄江） 三叶虫出现 530

奥陶纪（Ordovician, 485.4±1.9 ~ 443.4±1.5Ma）

The Ordovician is the second period of the Paleozoic Era and refers to the corresponding rock series, falling between the Cambrian and the Silurian. Commonly referred to as the age of marine invertebrates, the base of the Ordovician is defined on the Geological Society of America time scale (1999) as 490 million years ago, and the top or end of the Ordovician is defined at 444 million years ago. Charles Lapworth named the period, in 1879, after the Ordovices, a Celtic tribe that inhabited the Arenig-Bala area of northern Wales, where rocks of this series are well exposed.

By the Early Ordovician, North America had broken away from the supercontinent of Gondwana that amalgamated during the latest Precambrian and early Cambrian Period. It was surrounded by shallow water passive margins, and being at equatorial latitudes, these shallow seas were well suited for the proliferation of marine life-forms. The Iapetus Ocean separated what is now the east coast of North America from the African and South American segments of the remaining parts of Gondwana. By the Middle Ordovician, convergent tectonics brought an island arc system to the North American margin, initiating the Taconic orogeny as an arc/continent collision. This was followed by a sideways sweep of parts of Gondwana past the North American margin, leaving fragments of Gondwana attached to the modified eastern margin of North America.

During much of the Ordovician, carbonate sediments produced by intense organic productivity covered shallow epeiric seas in the tropical regions, including most of North America. This dramatic increase in carbonate sedimentation reflects a combination of tectonic activities that brought many low-lying continental fragments into the Tropics, high–sea level stands related to the breakup of Gondwana, and a sudden increase in the number of different organisms that started to use calcium carbonate to build their skeleton or shell structures.

Marine life included diverse forms of articulate brachiopods, communities of echinoderms such as the crinoids or sea lilies, and reef-building stromatoporoids, rugose and tabulate corals. Trilobites roamed the shallow seafloors, and many forms emerged. The Ordovician saw rapid diversification and wide distribution of several planktonic and pelagic faunas, especially the graptolites and conodonts, which form useful index fossils for this period. Nautiloids floated across the oceans and some attained remarkably large sizes, reaching up to more than 10 feet (several meters) across. Fish fossils are not common from Ordovician deposits, but some primitive armored types may have been present. The end of the Ordovician is marked by a marine extinction event, apparently caused by rapid cooling of the shallow seas, perhaps related to continental glaciation induced by tectonic plate movements. The end-Ordovician extinction is one of the greatest of all Phanerozoic time. About half of all species of brachiopods and bryozoans died off, and more than 100 other families of marine organisms disappeared forever.

The cause of the mass extinction at the end of the Ordovician appears to have been largely tectonic. The major landmass of Gondwana had been resting in equatorial regions for much of the Middle Ordovician, but migrated toward the South Pole at the end of the Ordovician. This caused global cooling and glaciation, lowering sea levels from the high stand they had been resting at for most of the Cambrian and Ordovician. The combination of cold climates with lower sea levels, leading to a loss of shallow shelf environments for habitation, probably was enough to cause the mass extinction at the end of the Ordovician.

在奥陶纪时期，古海洋把劳伦西亚(Laurentia)、波罗地(Baltica)、西伯利亚(Siberia)和刚瓦那(Gondwana)这几个古大陆分隔了开来。到了奥陶纪结束时，气候进入了地球上最寒冷的时期之一，冰雪覆盖了整个刚瓦那大陆的南半部。

在奥陶纪时，许多张裂的海盆使得古大陆劳伦西亚、波罗地、西伯利亚和冈瓦那大陆分离开来，包括巨神海(Iapetus Ocean)隔开了波罗地和西伯利亚大陆，后来巨神海闭合时，形成了加里东山脉(Caledonide Mts.)以及北阿帕拉契山脉(Appalachian Mts.)。还有古地中海(Paleo-Teyhys Ocean)把冈瓦那大陆从波罗地和西伯利亚大陆分隔了开来，而巨大的古大洋(Panthalassic Ocean)则覆盖了当时大部分的北半球。

在奥陶纪"冰室"世界的末期，进入了一个大冰期。冰原的厚度可以达到3 km，覆盖了大半非洲(Africa)的北部与中部以及部分的南美洲(Amazonia,亚马孙盆地)。从冰帽中流出冰冷的融冰水，冻结了世界各大洋，导致生活在赤道附近暖水种的生物大量灭绝。

志留纪(Silurian, 443.4±1.5 ~ 419.2±3.2Ma)

The Silurian refers to the third period of Paleozoic time ranging from 443 Ma to 415 Ma, falling between the Ordovician and Devonian Periods, and the corresponding system of rocks. From base to top it is divided into the Llandoverian and Wenlockian Ages or Series (comprising the Early Silurian) and the Ludlovian and Pridolian Ages or Series (comprising the Late Silurian). The period is named after a Celtic tribe called the Silures, who inhabited a region of Wales where rocks of the Silurian system are well exposed. The Silurian is also known as the age of fishes.

Rocks of the Silurian system are well exposed on most continents, with carbonates and evaporites covering parts of the Midwest of North America, the Russian platform, and China. Silurian clastic sequences form thick orogenic wedges in eastern and western North America, central Asia, western Europe, China, and Australia. Much of Gondwana was together in the Southern Hemisphere, and included the present-day landmasses of South America, Africa, Arabia, India, Antarctica, Australia, and a fragmented China. North America, Baltica, Kazakhstan, and Siberia formed separate landmasses in equatorial and northern latitudes. Much of Gondwana was bordered by convergent margins, and subduction was active beneath the Cordillera of North America. Baltica and Laurentia had collided during early stages of the Acadian-Caledonian orogeny, following an arc-accretion event in the Middle to Late Ordovician, known as the Taconic orogeny in eastern North America.

Land plants first appeared in the Early Silurian and were abundant by the middle of the period. Scorpionlike eurypterids and arthropods inhabited freshwater environments and may have scurried across the land. In the marine realm, trilobites, brachiopods, cephalopods, gastropods, bryozoans, crinoids, corals, and echinoderms inhabited shallow waters. Stromatoporoids and rugose and tabulate corals built conspicuous reefs, while jawed fish fed on plankton and nekton.

劳伦西亚(Laurentia)与波罗地大陆(Baltica)的碰撞，使得巨神海(Iapetus Ocean)的北面分支被关闭，并形成了老红砂岩（Old Red Sandstone）大陆。珊瑚礁四处扩张，陆生植物则开始往荒芜的大陆"移民"。

在古生代的中叶(大约四亿年前)，巨神海的闭合使得劳伦西亚与波罗地大陆碰撞在一起。这次大陆碰撞中，许多地方都出现了大陆边缘岛弧的上覆运动，导致了斯堪的纳维亚半岛(Scandinavia)上的加里东山脉(Caledonide Mts.)形成，以及英(Great Britain)北部、格陵兰(Greenland)和北美(North America)东部海岸的北阿帕拉契山脉(Appalachian Mts.)都在同时形成。

同样在古生代中叶，非常类似的情况出现在北中国陆块(North China)与南中国陆块(South China)自冈瓦那大陆(Gondwana)的「印度－澳洲」(India-Australia)边缘漂移开来，往北移动并穿越了古地中海(Paleo-tethys Ocean)。从整个古生代的早期到中叶，范围宽广的古大洋(Panthalassic Ocean)覆盖了北半球的大部分，同时在海的周围还环绕了隐没带，像极了今日太平洋周围的「火环」(ring-of-fire)。

• 陆生植物出现 425

泥盆纪(Devonian, 419.2±3.2 ~ 358.9±0.4Ma)

The Devonian is the fourth geological period in the Paleozoic Era, spanning the interval from 408 to 360 million years ago. It was named after exposures in Devonshire in southwest England. British geologists Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) and Roderick I. Murchison (1792–1871) first described the Devonian in detail in 1839. The Devonian is divided into three series and seven stages based on its marine fauna.

Devonian rocks are known from all continents and reflect the distribution of the continents grouped into a large remnant Gondwanan fragment in the Southern Hemisphere, and parts of Laurasia (North America and Europe), Angaraland (Siberia), China, and Kazakhstania in the Northern Hemisphere. The eastern coast of North America and adjacent Europe experienced the Acadian orogeny, formed in response to subduction and eventual collision between Avalonian fragments and ultimately Africa with Laurasia. Other orogenies affected North China, Kazakstania, and other fragments. These mountain-building events shed large clastic wedges, including the Catskill delta in North America and the Old Red sandstone in the British Isles.

The Devonian experienced several eustatic sealevel changes and had times of glaciation. There was a strong climatic gradation with tropical and monsoonal conditions in equatorial regions, and cold water conditions in more polar regions.

Marine life in the Devonian was prolific, with brachiopods reaching their peak. Rugose and tabulate corals, stromatoporoids, and algae built carbonate reefs in many parts of the world including North America, China, Europe, North Africa, and Australia. Crinoids, trilobites, ostracods, and a variety of bivalves lived around the reefs and in other shallow water environments, whereas calcareous foraminifera and large ammonites proliferated in the pelagic realm. The pelagic conodonts peaked in the Devonian, and their great variety, widespread distribution, and rapid changes make them useful biostratigraphic markers and form the basis for much of the biostratigraphic division of Devonian time. Bony fish evolved in the Devonian and evolved into tetrapod amphibia by the end of the period.

The land was inhabited by primitive plants in the Early Devonian, but by the middle of the period great swampy forests with giant fern trees (Archaeopteris) and spore-bearing plants populated the land. Insects, including some flying varieties, inhabited these swamps.

The end of the Devonian brought widespread mass extinction of some marine animal communities, including brachiopods, trilobites, conodonts, and corals. The cause of this extinction is not well known, with models including cooling caused by a southern glaciation, or a meteorite impact.

The Devonian saw the climactic development of the Appalachian Mountain belt in eastern North America. The Appalachians extend for 1,600 miles (1,000 km) along the east coast of North America, stretching from the St. Lawrence River valley in Quebec Canada, to Alabama. Many classifications consider the Appalachians to continue through Newfoundland in maritime Canada, and before the Atlantic Ocean opened, the Appalachians were continuous with the Caledonides of Europe. Home to many of America’s great universities, the Appalachians are one of the best-studied mountain ranges in the world, and understanding of their evolution was one of the factors that led to the development and refinement of the paradigm of plate tectonics in the early 1970s.

Rocks that form the Appalachians include those that were deposited on or adjacent to North America and thrust on the continent during several orogenic events. For the length of the Appalachians, the older continental crust consists of Grenville Province gneisses, deformed and metamorphosed about 1 billion years ago during the Grenville orogeny. The Appalachians grew in several stages. After Late Precambrian rifting, the Iapetus Ocean evolved and hosted island arc growth, while a passive margin sequence was deposited on the North American rifted margin in Cambrian-Ordovician times. In the Middle Ordovician the collision of an island arc terrane with North America marks the Taconic orogeny, followed by the Mid-Devonian Acadian orogeny, which probably represents the collision of North America with Avalonia, off the coast of Gondwana. This orogeny formed huge molassic fan delta complexes of the Catskill Mountains, and was followed by strike-slip faulting. The Late Paleozoic Alleghenian orogeny formed striking folds and faults in the southern Appalachians, but was dominated by strike-slip faulting in the Northern Appalachians. This event appears to be related to the rotation of Africa to close the remaining part of the open ocean in the southern Appalachians. Late Triassic-Jurassic rifting reopened the Appalachians, forming the present Atlantic Ocean.

古生代早期的海洋在泥盆纪时期闭合，形成「盘古」(Pangea)大陆的前身。淡水鱼类开始自南半球的陆地迁徙到北美(North America)和欧洲(Europe)。森林则首次出现在赤道地区的古加拿大（Canada,今天的加拿大北极地区）。

泥盆纪是「鱼类的世界」，在泥盆纪早期演化出的有颔鱼类到了泥盆纪晚期成为最顶尖的掠食者。

植物此时也开始大量出现在陆地上，同时最早形成于热带沼泽地区的「煤」，则覆盖了大半今天加拿大极区附近的岛屿、北格陵兰(Greenland)以及斯堪地那维亚(Scandinavia)等地。

• 已知最早的古两栖类生物-鱼石螈（格陵兰） 367~362.5

石炭纪(Carboniferous, 358.9±0.4 ~ 298.9±0.15Ma)

The Carboniferous is a Late Paleozoic geologic period in which the Carboniferous System of rocks was deposited between 355 and 285 million years (Ma) ago. The system was named after coal-bearing strata in Wales and has the distinction of being the first formally established stratigraphic system. In the United States it is customary to use the divisions Mississippian Period (355–320 Ma) and Pennsylvania Period (320–285 Ma), whereas Europeans and the rest of the world refer to the entire interval of time as the Carboniferous Period and divide the rocks deposited in the period into two subsystems, the Upper and Lower, and five series.

The Carboniferous is known as the age of amphibians and the age of coal. The supercontinent Pangaea straddled the equator in the early Carboniferous, with warm climates dominating the southern (Gondwana) and northern (Laurasia) landmasses. In the Lower Carboniferous giant seed ferns and great coal forests spread across much of Gondwana and Laurasia, and most marine fauna that developed in the Lower Paleozoic flourished. Brachiopods, however, declined in number and species. Fusulinid foraminifera appeared for the first time. Primitive amphibians roamed the Lower Carboniferous swamps, along with swarms of insects including giant dragonflies and cockroaches.

In the Early Carboniferous (Mississippian), Gondwana was rotating northward toward the northern Laurentian continent, closing the Rheic Ocean. Continental fragments that now make up much of Asia were rifting from Gondwana, and the west coasts of North and South America were subduction-type convergent margins open to the Panthallassic Ocean. Several arc and other collisions with North America were underway, including the Antler Orogeny in the western United States. The Hercynian Orogeny in Europe marked the collision between Baltica, southern Europe, and Africa. In the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), Laurentia and Gondwana finally collided, forming the single large landmass of Pangaea. This collision produced the Alleghenian Orogeny in the Appalachians of the eastern United States and the Ouachita Orogeny in the southern United States and South America, and formed the ancestral Rocky Mountains. In Asia Kazakhstan collided with Siberia, forming the Altai Mountains. Several microcontinents were rifted off the Gondwana continents to be accreted to form much of present-day Asia.

Paleogeographic map of Gondwana in the Carboniferous (modeled after Kent Condie and Robert Sloan)

Global climates in the Carboniferous ranged from tropical around much of Laurentia and northern Gondwana, to polar on southern Gondwana, which experienced glaciation in the Pennsylvanian. This widespread glaciation formed in response to Gondwana migrating across the South Pole and is characterized by several advances and retreats and glacial deposits on Africa, Australia, South America, and India. Coal formed at both high and low latitudes in the Pennsylvanian, reflecting the warm climates from easterly trade winds around the closing Rheic Ocean and future opening of the Tethys Ocean. Most of the coal deposits formed in foreland basins associated with continental collisions.

Many sedimentary deposits of the Carboniferous age worldwide show development in a repetitive cycle, including accumulation of organic material (vegetation), deposition of carbonates, deposition of clastic sands, and erosion to sea level and soil development. These types of sedimentary deposits have become known as cyclothems; they reflect a uniform fluctuation of sea level by 500–650 feet (150–200 m). Analysis of the ages of each cyclothem has led to the recognition that each cycle represents 300,000 years, but the cause of the repetitive cycles remains a mystery. They may be related to cyclical variations in orbital parameters (Milankovitch cycles) or to variations in the intensity of the southern glaciation.

Extinctions in the Late Devonian paved the way for rapid expansion of new marine invertebrate forms in many ecological niches. Radiations in the brachiopods, ammonoids, bryozoans, crinoids, foraminifera, gastropods, pelcypods, and calcareous algae became widespread. Crinoids were particularly abundant in the Mississippian, forming dense submarine gardens, along with reefs made of bryozoans and calcareous algae. Fusulinid foraminifera with distinctive coiled forms evolved at the beginning of the Pennsylvanian and serve as a useful index fossil since they evolved so quickly and are abundant in many environments.

Land plants originated in the Devonian and saw additional diversification in the Carboniferous. Chordates, a prominent gymnosperm with long, thin leaves, flourished in the Mississippian, whereas conifers appeared in the Late Pennsylvanian. The tropical coal forests of the Pennsylvanian had trees that were more than 100 feet (30 m) tall, including the prominent Lepidodendron and Calamites trees and the seed-bearing Glossopteris shrub, which covered much of the cooler parts of Gondwana. Warm climates in the low-latitude coal swamps led to a flourishing fungi flora. The dense vegetation of the Carboniferous led to high levels of atmospheric oxygen, estimated to have made up about 35 percent of the gases in the atmosphere, compared with presentday levels of 21 percent.

The insects radiated in the Early Pennsylvanian and included the wingless hexapods and the primitive Paleoptera, ancestors of the modern dragonfly and mayfly. A giant Pennsylvanian dragonfly had a wingspan of 24 inches (60 cm) and preyed largely on other insects. Exopterygota, primitive crickets and cockroaches, appeared in the Pennsylvanian. Endopterygota, the folding-wing insects including flies and beetles, did not appear until the Permian.

The Carboniferous is famous for the radiation of amphibians. By the end of the Mississippian 10 different amphibian families had appeared, living mostly in water and feeding on fish. Eryops and other amphibians of this time resembled crocodiles, and include relatives of modern frogs and salamanders. Embolomeres evolved into large (up to 13 feet, or 4 m) eel-like forms with small legs, some living on land and eating insects. Leopospondyls remained in the water, eating mollusks and insects. The earliest known reptile, westlothiana, evolved from the amphibians in the Late Mississippian by 338 Ma ago. The transition from amphibians to reptiles occurred quickly, within a few tens of millions of years after the origin of amphibians. Amniotes are four-legged animals (tetrapods) that produced eggs similar to the modern bird egg, and include reptiles with scales. The rise of amniotes is a major evolutionary step, since the older amphibians underwent an early tadpole stage in which the young are vulnerable to prey. In contrast, the eggs of the amniotes and later reptiles provided enough food for the growth of the embryo in a safer environment and lessened the dependence on water, allowing them to move further inland. Descendants of the amniotes include mammals and birds.

The evolutionary transition between reptiles and mammals is gradual, with more intermediate evolutionary steps known than for any other high-order taxa. Like many other major evolutionary periods in Earth history, this evolutionary step occurred during a supercontinental amalgamation, enabling many species to compete. Many species intermediate between reptiles and mammals (the so-called mammal-like reptiles), and these dominated the land fauna for about 100 million years until the period of the dinosaurs began in the Permian. Mammal-like reptiles include two orders: Pelycosaurs and Therasids. The mammal-like reptiles had evolved into true mammals by this time but did not become dominant until the dinosaurs were killed off at the end of the Cretaceous.

在石炭纪早期，位于欧美大陆(Euramerica)及冈瓦那大陆(Gondwana)之间的古生代海洋开始闭合，形成了阿帕拉契山脉(Appalachian Mts.)和维利斯堪山脉(Variscan Mts.)。同时南极(Antarctica)开始形成冰帽，四足的爬虫类开始演化，赤道地区开始形成煤的沼泽。

在晚石炭纪时期，由北美及北欧组成的大陆与南方的冈瓦那大陆(Gondwana)发生碰撞，形成了盘古大陆(Pangea)的西半部。冰雪此时覆盖了南半球的大半，而巨大的沼泽区煤田则形成于赤道附近。

到了古生代末期，绝大部分在潘诺西亚(Pannotia)超大陆支解期间张开的海洋，都由于后来大陆之间的碰撞，并形成了新的超大陆盘古(Pangea)之后消失了。以赤道为中心，盘古大陆从南极延伸至北极，并将古地中海(Paleo-Tethys Ocean)与古太平洋(Panthalassic Ocean)分隔在东、西两侧。

在晚石炭纪到早二叠纪期间，盘古大陆的南部（包括South America南美洲南部、Africa非洲南部、Antarctica南极洲、India印度、印度南部以及Australia澳洲）被冰河所覆盖。同时证据也显示在二叠纪晚期，北极冰帽出现在西伯利亚(Siberia)东部。同时在石炭纪晚期，位于盘古大陆中部宽广的山脉则形成了赤道高地，并成为赤道雨林带形成煤炭的场所。在二叠纪中叶，盘古中央山脉往北移动到北美及北欧内部的干燥气候区，变成类似沙漠的气候。持续抬升的山脉则阻挡了赤道风带吹送而来的水汽。

「盘古」这个字的意思是「所有的大陆」，虽然我们称为「盘古」的这块超大陆形成于古生代末期，但是这块超大陆在当时似乎仍未包含所有的陆地，就在东半球-古地中海的右侧，仍然有分离于超大陆之外的陆地。这些大陆就是南、北中国陆块(South, North China)，以及一块长形「挡风玻璃」状的辛梅利亚(Cimmeria)大陆。辛梅利亚大陆包含的部分有土耳其(Turkey)、伊朗(Iran)、阿富汗(Afghanistan)、西藏(Tibet)、印度支那(Indochina)和马来亚(Malaya)。这块大陆似乎是晚石炭到早二叠期间，从冈瓦那大陆(Gondwana)「印度-澳洲」(India-Australia)的边缘分离开来。结合了中国陆块，辛梅利亚大陆朝着欧亚大陆往北移动，最终在晚三叠纪时，撞上了西伯利亚(Siberia)的南缘。于是就在亚洲这些破碎陆块互相撞击之后，世界上所有的陆地终于全部加入了超大陆，形成名符其实的盘古大陆。

• 已知最古老的爬行动物-林蜥属（加拿大） 315

二叠纪(Permian, 298.9±0.15 ~ 252.17±0.06Ma)

Permian refers to the last period in the Paleozoic era, lasting from 290–248 million years ago, and to the corresponding system of rocks. Sir Roderick Murchison named it in 1841 after the Perm region of northern Russia, where rocks of this age were first studied in detail. The supercontinent of Pangaea included most of the planet’s landmasses during the Permian. This continental landmass extended from the South Pole, across the equator to high northern latitudes, with a wide Tethys Sea forming an open wedge of water near the equator. The Siberian continental block collided with Laurasia in the Permian, forming the Ural Mountains. Most of Pangaea was influenced by hot and dry climate conditions and saw the formation of continental red-bed deposits and large-scale, cross-bedded sandstones, such as the Coconino sandstone of the southwestern United States and the New Red sandstone of the United Kingdom. Ice sheets covered the south-polar region, amplifying already low sea levels so they fell below the continental shelves, causing widespread mass extinctions. The glaciations continued to grow in intensity through the Permian, and together with weathering of continental calsilicates, were able to draw enough $CO_{2}$ out of the atmosphere to drastically lower global temperatures. This dramatic climate change enhanced the already widespread extinctions, killing off many species of corals, brachiopods, ammonoids, and forams in one of history’s greatest mass extinctions, in which about 70–90 percent of all marine invertebrate species perished, as did large numbers of land mammals. This greatest catastrophe of Earth history did not have a single cause, but reflects the combination of various elements.

中生代Mz 252.17±0.06~66.0

中生代（Mesozoic）最早是由意大利地质学家Giovanni Arduino所建立，当时名为第二纪（Secondary），以相对于现代的第三纪。在希腊文中，中生代意为“中间的”+“生物”。中生代介于古生代与新生代之间。由于这段时期的优势动物是爬行动物，尤其是恐龙，因此又称为爬行动物时代（Age of the Reptiles）。中生代也是板块、气候、生物演化改变极大的时代。在中生代开始时，各大陆连接为一块超大陆－盘古大陆。盘古大陆后来分裂成南北两片，北部大陆进一步分为北美和欧亚大陆，南部大陆分裂为南美、非洲、印度与马达加斯加、澳洲和南极洲，只有澳洲没有和南极洲完全分裂。中生代的气候非常温暖，对动物的演化产生影响。在中生代末期，已见现代生物的雏形。

三叠纪T 252.17±0.06~201.3±0.2

• 三叶虫灭绝 251.4
• Siberian Traps形成-已知最大型的火山爆发 251~250
• 恐龙出现 230
• 盘古大陆开始分离 225~200
• 翼龙出现 210

侏罗纪J 201.3±0.2~145.0

• 哺乳动物开始出现 200
• 已知最古老的鸟类-徐氏曙光鸟 160
• 始祖鸟出现 155~150

白垩纪K 145.0~66.0

• 胎盘类哺乳动物开始出现 114
• 灵长目动物首次出现 85
• 恐龙灭绝 65

新生代Kz 66.0~Now

新生代（Cenozoic） 是地球历史上最新的一个地质时代，它从6600万年前开始一直持续到今天。随着恐龙的灭绝，中生代结束，新生代开始。新生代是哺乳动物的时代。在新生代中，哺乳动物从微小简单的原始哺乳动物发展到占据各个生态圈的巨大的动物群。在新生代内，鸟和被子植物也有很大的发展，被子植物迅速成为优势种，使得其他裸子植物，例如苏铁、银杏等植物逐渐衰退。新生代中，盘古大陆彻底分裂，地球上的各个大陆逐渐移动到今天的位置上。

古近纪（下第三纪）E 66.0~20.03

• 喜马拉雅山开始形成 40
• 猿首次出现 35

新近纪（上第三纪）N 20.03~2.588

• 人类和非洲猿的共同祖先 8~6
• 灵长目动物首次开始两足行走 4.4
• 南方古猿（Australopithecines）在非洲大草原出现 3

第四纪Q 2.588~Now

• 最早的石器工具-奥尔德沃石器工具（埃塞俄比亚和肯尼亚） 2.5
• 原始人类（直立人）从非洲向亚洲扩散-第一次大迁徙 1.8
• 元谋人（中国） 1.7
• 火种证据 1.6
• 人的脑量开始增长 1.2
• 原始人类到达欧洲大陆 1
• 北京人（中国） 0.7~0.2
• 山顶洞人（中国） 0.18
• 所有现代人类的共同祖先（非洲） 0.15~0.12
• 走出非洲-第二次大迁徙 0.1~0.05
• 智人（克罗马农人Cro-Magnons）到达欧洲 0.04~0.035
• 尼安德特人（Neanderthals）灭绝 0.03
• 美洲原住民的祖先跨过白令海峡到达美洲大陆 0.015
• 小麦、豌豆、橄榄、绵羊、山羊（新月沃地） 8500 BC
• 稻、黍、猪、蚕（中国） 7500 BC
• 甘蔗、香蕉（新几内亚） 芝麻、茄子（印度河河谷） 7000 BC
• 高粱、非洲稻、珍珠鸡（萨赫勒地带） 5000 BC
• 玉米、豆、南瓜属植物、火鸡（中美洲） 3500 BC
• 马铃薯、木薯、羊驼、豚鼠（安第斯山脉和亚马孙河地区） 3500 BC
• 文字出现（美索不达米亚苏美尔人） 3000 BC
• 向日葵（美国东部） 2500 BC

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,

Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started.Wait...

The Earth began to cool,

The autotrophs began to drool,

Neanderthals developed tools,

We built a wall (we built the pyramids),

Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,

That all started with the big bang!

Since the dawn of man is really not that long,

As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.

A fraction of a second and the elements were made.

The bipeds stood up straight,

The dinosaurs all met their fate,

They tried to leap but they were late

And they all died (they froze their asses off)

The oceans and pangea

See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya

Set in motion by the same big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

It's expanding ever outward but one day

It will cause the stars to go the other way,

Collapsing ever inward, we won't be here, it wont be hurt

Our best and brightest figure that it'll make an even bigger bang!

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us

Debating out while here they're catching deer (we're catching viruses)

Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy

It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology

It all started with the big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

Reference

• Wikipedia
• 《枪炮、病菌与钢铁》
• Encyclopedia of Earth & Space Science