Eon	Era	Period	Epoch	Ago (years)	Life ?	Climate events
Phanerozoic	Cenozoic	Quarternary	Holocene	10,000	Humans	Rise of human civilization
			Pleistocene	1.6 Mio		Seven glaciation periods
		Neogene	Pliocene	5.2 Mio		Antarctic ice shield is forming
			Milocene	23.3 Mio
		Paleogene	Oligocene	35.4 Mio
			Eocene	56.5 Mio
			Paleocene	65 Mio	Mass extinction 65 mio
	Mesozoic	Cretaceous		146 Mio	Age of dinosaurs	An even warm Earth
		Jurassic		208 Mio	Age of dinosaurs Mass extinction 210 mio
		Triassic		245 Mio	Mass extinction 255 mio
	Paleozoic	Permian		290 Mio
		Pennsylvanian	Carboniferous	323 Mio		Coldest period in history of planet
		Mississippian		362 Mio		climatic characteristics of the paleozoic
		Devonian		408 Mio	Mass extinction 365 mio
		Silurian		439 Mio
		Ordovician		510 Mio	Mass extinction 440 mio
		Cambrian		570 Mio	Cambrian explosion
Precambrien		Proterazoic		2.5 Billion	One-celled organisms in oceans	Intense glaciation followed by an ice-free planet
		Archean		4.5 Billion		Dominance of volcanic gases, appearance of life

Information compiled from Climate Change-A multidisciplinary Approach by William James Burroughs, Cambridge University Press, 2001.