Earth Science, Geologic Time & Fossils
Planet Earth has billions of years of history, from the time when it was an inhospitable ball of hot magma to when its surface stabilized into a variety of diverse zones capable of supporting many life-forms. Many are the species that lived through the various geologic eras and left a trace of their existence in the fossils that we study today. But Earth is never done settling, as we can see from the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other phenomena manifested in Earth’s crust, oceans, and atmosphere.
Browse Subcategories
Earth Science, Geologic Time & Fossils Encyclopedia Articles
Featured Articles
seed fern
Seed fern, loose confederation of seed plants from the Carboniferous and Permian periods (about 360 to 250 million years ago). Some, such as Medullosa, grew as upright, unbranched woody trunks topped with...
Cambrian Period
Cambrian Period, earliest time division of the Paleozoic Era, extending from 538.8 million to 485.4 million years ago. The Cambrian Period is divided into four stratigraphic series: the Terreneuvian Series...
tsunami
Tsunami, catastrophic ocean wave, usually caused by a submarine earthquake, an underwater or coastal landslide, or a volcanic eruption. The term tidal wave is frequently used for such a wave, but it is...
Earth
Earth, third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest planet in the solar system in terms of size and mass. Its single most outstanding feature is that its near-surface environments are the only places...
Batodonoides
Batodonoides, genus of extinct insectivorous mammals that lived during the Eocene Epoch (56 to 33.9 million years ago) and of which the oldest species, Batodonoides vanhouteni, may have been the smallest...
trilobite
Trilobite, any member of a group of extinct fossil arthropods easily recognized by their distinctive three-lobed, three-segmented form. Trilobites, exclusively marine animals, first appeared at 521 million...
stromatolite
Stromatolite, layered deposit, mainly of limestone, formed by the growth of blue-green algae (primitive one-celled organisms). These structures are usually characterized by thin, alternating light and...
sea level
Sea level, position of the air-sea interface, to which all terrestrial elevations and submarine depths are referred. The sea level constantly changes at every locality with the changes in tides, atmospheric...
Burgess Shale
Burgess Shale, fossil formation containing remarkably detailed traces of soft-bodied biota of the Middle Cambrian Epoch (520 to 512 million years ago). Collected from a fossil bed in the Burgess Pass of...
Conrad Schlumberger and Marcel Schlumberger
Conrad Schlumberger and Marcel Schlumberger were French brothers, geophysicists and petroleum engineers noted for their invention, in 1927, of a method of continuous electric logging of boreholes. Their...
Hadean Eon
Hadean Eon, informal division of Precambrian time occurring between about 4.6 billion and about 4.0 billion years ago. The Hadean Eon is characterized by Earth’s initial formation—from the accretion of...
Keeling Curve
Keeling Curve, graph showing seasonal and annual changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations since 1958 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The graph, which was devised by American climate...
oceanography
Oceanography, scientific discipline concerned with all aspects of the world’s oceans and seas, including their physical and chemical properties, their origin and geologic framework, and the life forms...
geology
Geology, the fields of study concerned with the solid Earth. Included are sciences such as mineralogy, geodesy, and stratigraphy. An introduction to the geochemical and geophysical sciences logically begins...
gomphothere
Gomphothere, any member of a line of extinct elephants that formed the most numerous group of the order Proboscidea and lived from perhaps as early as the end of the Oligocene Epoch (33.9 million to 23...
meteorology
Meteorology, Scientific study of atmospheric phenomena, particularly of the troposphere and lower stratosphere. Meteorology entails the systematic study of weather and its causes, and provides the basis...
Gaia hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis, model of the Earth in which its living and nonliving parts are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Developed c. 1972 largely by British...
climatology
Climatology, branch of the atmospheric sciences concerned with both the description of climate and the analysis of the causes of climatic differences and changes and their practical consequences. Climatology...
Pteranodon
Pteranodon, (genus Pteranodon), flying reptile (pterosaur) found as fossils in North American deposits dating from about 90 million to 100 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period. Pteranodon...
Earth Science, Geologic Time & Fossils Subcategories
Dinosaurs
Dinosaur, the common name given to a group of reptiles, often very large, that first appeared roughly 245 million years ago (near the beginning of the Middle Triassic Epoch) and thrived worldwide for nearly 180 million years. Most died out by the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago, but many lines of evidence now show that one lineage evolved into birds about 150 million years ago.
Articles
-
tyrannosaur
dinosaur group
-
Struthiomimus
dinosaur genus
-
Spinosaurus
dinosaur
Earth Sciences
The Earth sciences are the fields of study concerned with the solid Earth, its waters, and the air that envelops it. Included are the geologic, hydrologic, and atmospheric sciences.
Articles
- Earth sciences
-
global warming
Earth science
-
Asia
continent
Fossils & Geologic Time
Geologic time is the extensive interval of time occupied by the geologic history of Earth. Formal geologic time begins at the start of the Archean Eon (4.0 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) and continues to the present day.
Articles
-
Australopithecus
fossil hominin genus
-
Precambrian
geochronology
-
Permian Period
geochronology
Geoscientists
Articles
-
J. Tuzo Wilson
Canadian geologist
-
James D. Dana
American geologist and mineralogist
-
Alcide Dessalines d’ Orbigny
French paleontologist
