The Hadean eon represents the time before fossil record of life on Earth ; its upper boundary is now regarded as 4. 0 Ga. Other subdivisions reflect the evolution of life ; the Archean and Proterozoic are both eons, the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic are eras of the Phanerozoic eon.

The time span of the Phanerozoic includes the rapid emergence of a number of animal phyla ; the evolution of these phyla into diverse forms ; the emergence of terrestrial plants ; the development of complex plants ; the evolution of fish ; the emergence of terrestrial animals ; and the development of modern faunas.

* Markov A., Korotayev A. Hyperbolic growth of marine and continental biodiversity through the Phanerozoic and community evolution.

Aeon can also refer to the four aeons on the Geologic Time Scale that make up the Earth's history, the Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic, and the current aeon Phanerozoic.

It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, and, spanning 80 million years, the longest period of the Phanerozoic Eon.

The Cretaceous is justly famous for its chalk ; indeed, more chalk formed in the Cretaceous than in any other period in the Phanerozoic.

The Cenozoic Era ( or ; also Cænozoic or Cainozoic ; meaning " new life ", from Greek kainos " new ", and zoe " life ") is the current and most recent of the three Phanerozoic geological eras, following the Mesozoic Era and covering the period from 65. 5 Ma to the present.

The Ediacaran Period, named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia, is the last geological period of the Neoproterozoic Era and of the Proterozoic Eon, immediately preceding the Cambrian Period, the first period of the Paleozoic Era and of the Phanerozoic Eon.

The Phanerozoic eon, is subdivided into eras.

Mass extinctions seem to be a Phanerozoic phenomenon, with extinction rates low before large complex organisms arose.

They were originally identified as outliers to a general trend of decreasing extinction rates during the Phanerozoic, but as more stringent statistical tests have been applied to the accumulating data, the " Big Five " cannot be so clearly defined, but rather appear to represent the largest ( or some of the largest ) of a relatively smooth continuum of extinction events.

As of 2008, the ICS is nearly finished a task begun in 1974, subdividing the Phanerozoic eonothem into internationally accepted stages using two types of benchmark.

Fossils of invertebrates are found in various types of sediment from the Phanerozoic.

It is the longest of the Phanerozoic eras, and is subdivided into six geologic periods ( from oldest to youngest ): the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian.

The early Cambrian climate was probably moderate at first, becoming warmer over the course of the Cambrian, as the second-greatest sustained sea level rise in the Phanerozoic got underway.

This cold spell caused the second-greatest mass extinction of Phanerozoic time.

The Precambrian ( Pre-Cambrian ) is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale.

The Precambrian is so named because it precedes the Cambrian, the first period of the Phanerozoic Eon, which is named after Cambria, the classical name for Wales, where rocks from this age were first studied.

This is because many Precambrian rocks are heavily metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have either been destroyed by erosion, or remain deeply buried beneath Phanerozoic strata.

The Phanerozoic ( British English Phanærozoic ) is the current geologic eon in the geologic timescale, and the one during which abundant animal life has existed.

The time before the Phanerozoic, called the Precambrian supereon, is now divided into the Hadean, Archaean and Proterozoic eons.

The Phanerozoic is divided into three eras: the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic.

In the older literature, the term Phanerozoic is generally used as a label for the time period of interest to paleontologists, but that use of the term seems to be falling into disuse in more modern literature.

" Regional tectonics: from the Rhine graben to the Po plain, a summary of the tectonic evolution of the Alps and their forelands ".

Formerly it shared tectonic evolution with the nearby Vosges Mountains.

Because many of these reservoirs are found in sedimentary basins, they study the formation of these basins, as well as their sedimentary and tectonic evolution and the present-day positions of the rock units.

* The tectonic evolution of the western and central Alps and their forelands, website of prof. S. M.

Due to a simultaneous combination of ideal factors such as thick, pale, grey, and strong limestone layers, which are formed by fine-grained materials ; hot and moist climate and slow tectonic process as a whole ; Hạ Long Bay has had a complete karst evolution for 20 million years.

* Martin Meschede and Udo Barckhausen, " Plate tectonic evolution of the Cocos-Nazca plate ": reconstructing its geological evolution

Structural geology and tectonic evolution of the Blacktail and Ruby Mountains, SW Montana

This extension rejuvenated a very complex tectonic framework inherited from the Tethyan evolution and the Pyrenean orogeny.

In recent years the VAN team has tried to improve the accuracy of the estimation of the time of the forthcoming earthquake by introducing the concept of natural time, a parameter which indicates the evolution of the process from the generation of the seismic electric signal to the fracture at the tectonic fault.

Some of the issues they addressed are the following: Evolution of the Indian tectonic plates and its implications ; determination of the time when the Himalayas started rising leading to monsoonal climate of the Indian subcontinent ; nature of mid-ocean ridges ( where new crusts form ); characteristics of marine sedimentary facies ; the role of rivers on the Indian subcontinent in marine sediment budget and paleoclimatic evolution as archived in the sediment cores.

An expert on the evolution and tectonic development of mountain belts, Williams advanced the theory of colliding super-continents in the 1960s and 1970s by helping to transform the notion of continental drift into the theory of plate tectonics.

The earliest phase of tectonic evolution was marked by the cooling and solidification of the upper crust of the earth surface in the Archaean era ( prior to 2. 5 billion years ) which is represented by the exposure of gneisses and granites especially on the Peninsula.

Most recently his research has provided new insights into the tectonic evolution of Mars and Venus.

* Balmoral Reef Plate, small tectonic plate in the Pacific Ocean north of Fiji

Because the Pacific plate is the largest of all the tectonic plates on Earth, crustal material at its western edge has had a long time since formation ( up to 170 million years ) to compact and become very dense ; hence its great height-difference relative to the higher-riding Mariana Plate, at the point where the Pacific Plate crust is subducted.

A mid-oceanic ridge, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has examples of volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart ; the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates coming together.

It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.

The Canterbury Plains formed from the erosion of the Southern Alps ( an extensive and high mountain range caused by the meeting of the Indo-Australian and Pacific tectonic plates ) and from the alluvial fans created by large braided rivers.

The Kuril Islands form part of the ring of tectonic instability encircling the Pacific ocean referred to as the Ring of Fire.

Denali National Park and Preserve is located in an area of intense tectonic activity: the Pacific Plate is subducting under the North American plate, creating the Denali fault system, which is a right-lateral strike-slip fault over 720 miles long.

** Pacific-Antarctic Ridge, oceanic ridge at the boundary between the Pacific and Antarctic tectonic plates

** Pacific-Kula Ridge, former oceanic ridge at the boundary between the Pacific and Kula tectonic plates

** Pacific-Farallon Ridge, former oceanic ridge at the boundary between the Pacific and Farallon tectonic plates

* Cocos Plate, a tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean

The Pacific-Antarctic Ridge ( PAR ) is a divergent tectonic plate boundary located on the seafloor of the South Pacific Ocean, separating the Pacific Plate from the Antarctic Plate.

Pacific Oceanic tectonic plates have plunged below the North American Plate in this part of North America for hundreds of millions of years.

The Juan de Fuca plate is bounded on the south by the Blanco Fracture Zone ( running northeast off the coast of Oregon, USA ), on the north by the Nootka Fault ( running southwest off Nootka Island, near Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada ), and along the west by the Pacific Plate ( which covers most of the Pacific Ocean and is the largest of Earth's tectonic plates ).

The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it.

The Transverse Ranges represent a complex of tectonic forces and faulting stemming from the interaction of the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate along the San Andreas Fault system.

Sunday evening's supersite observations by SIR-C and X-SAR focused on the interaction of plants and animals in the ecology of the forests of Raco, Michigan ; hydrologic cycles around Bebedouro, Brazil ; tectonic plate activity around the Galapagos Islands in the South Pacific ; and the transfer of heat through wave energy in the Southern Ocean.

Monday's radar work included calibration passes over Palm Valley, Northern Territory in Australia, and the Amazon forests of Brazil ; oceanography observations over the Northeast Pacific Ocean, the Gulf Stream, the Southern Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico ; ecology observations over Altona, Manitoba, Canada ; geology observations over the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming ; hydrology studies of Mammoth Mountain, California, and geology studies of the tectonic activity around the Galapagos Islands of the southeastern Pacific.

The Santa Cruz Islands are less than five million years old, and were pushed upward by the tectonic subduction of the northward-moving Indo-Australian Plate under the Pacific Plate.