Famous Fossil Sites
across Geologic Time
Fossil Mall
Science Section
 

 

  

Chart of Geologic Time:
Denoting Famous Fossil Sites

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phanerozoic EON
(544 mya to present)

"The age of visible life"
ERA
Periods
EPOCH
Fossil Site

Cenozoic Era
(65 mya to today)

Quaternary (1.8 mya to today)

Holocene (11,000 years to today) .
Pleistocene (1.8 mya to 11,000 yrs) .
Tertiary (65 to 1.8 mya) Pliocene (5 to 1.8 mya) .
Miocene (23 to 5 mya) .
Oligocene (38 to 23 mya)

.
Eocene (54 to 37 mya) Green River Formation Wyoming
Messel Oil Shale Lagerstatt, Germany (50Ma)
Paleocene (65 to 54 mya) .
Mesozoic Era
(245 to 65 mya)

Cretaceous (146 to 65 mya)

Divided
as:

Upper;

Middle;

Lower

Fox Hills, South Dakota (70Ma)
Lebanon Sublithographic Limestone
Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia

Jurassic (208 to 146 mya) Liaoning Provinve China (through Jurassic)
Solnhofen Limestone, Germany (155Ma)
Triassic (245 to 208 mya) .

 

Paleozoic Era
(544 to 245 mya)

 Permian (286 to 245 mya)

.
Carboniferous
(360 to 286 mya)
Pennsylvanian (325 to 286 mya) .Mazon Creek Illinois (300Ma)
Mississippian (360 to 325 mya) Crawfordsville Indiana Crinoids (340Ma)
Devonian (410 to 360 mya) Oklahoma Trilobites
Silurian (440 to 410 mya) .
Ordovician (500 to 440 mya)
Russian Ordovician Trilobites
Cambrian (544 to 500 mya) Tommotian (530 to 527 mya)

Krukowski Quarry Wisconsin Ichnofossils
Burgess Shale
Chengjiang China

 

Precambrian Time
(4,500 to 544 mya)

"deep time on earth"

 Proterozoic Era
(2500 to 544 mya)
Vendian (650 to 544 mya) or Ediacaran
No Epochs

.
Neoproterozoic (900 to 544 mya) - Late

.
Mesoproterozoic (1600 to 900 mya) - Middle .
Paleoproterozoic (2500 to 1600 mya) - Early About stromatolites

Archaean
(3800 to 2500 mya)

.
Hadean
(4500 to 3800 mya) 		Earth's environment extremely hostile to life as we know it - no fossils