Earth history
For the last 540 million years, the rocks record an extraordinary story: oceans opening and closing, a supercontinent assembling and breaking apart, five mass extinctions and the rise of everything from trilobites to humans. Geologists divide it into twelve periods. Choose one to read its guide and see the planet as it looked on an interactive 3D globe.
Scrub through deep time in 3DPaleozoic Era · “Ancient life”
Animals diversify in the seas, plants and then animals conquer the land, and the continents gather into Pangaea.
- 538.8 – 485.4 million years ago
Cambrian
The explosion of animal life
- 485.4 – 443.8 million years ago
Ordovician
Teeming seas, then a great freeze
- 443.8 – 419.2 million years ago
Silurian
Life takes root on land
- 419.2 – 358.9 million years ago
Devonian
The Age of Fishes
- 358.9 – 298.9 million years ago
Carboniferous
The age of coal forests
- 298.9 – 251.9 million years ago
Permian
Pangaea and the Great Dying
Mesozoic Era · “Middle life”
The age of dinosaurs, from the aftermath of the Great Dying to the asteroid impact that ended it, as Pangaea splits apart.
Cenozoic Era · “Recent life”
Mammals and birds inherit the planet, the climate cools into ice ages and our own species appears.