Planet Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. The landscape we observe today when walking the streets, taking a trail or looking out of the window is very different from that of other times. To understand the process of formation and transformation of our planet, scientists elaborated the division of time into eras geological.
This division segments the history of our planet into four phases: Pre-Cambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Each of these phases is divided into several periods, which, in turn, are divided into epochs, thus forming the geological scale of time.
Geological Structure of Time. To understand it, you have to read it from the bottom up
If we look closely at the sequence of events and the duration of each of the geological eras, we can conclude that the era Pre-Cambrian was the largest of all, with four billion years of duration, leaving “only” about 561 million years for the too many ages. It is also possible to note how the emergence of the human species is recent and that we have never lived with dinosaurs throughout history, even the primates that gave rise to the human race.
Due to the great time difference between the events of Earth and the events of humanity, a distinction is made between geological time (millions and billions of years) and historical time (hundreds and thousands of years).
The elaboration of geological eras followed the criterion of chemical dating of fossils and ancient rocks found, a result of many years of studies and research.
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography
