Understanding the geologic time scale and how to organize Earth’s history into a coherent timeline. MS-LS4-1: Analyze and interpret data for patterns in the fossil record that document the existence, ...

Geologists and paleontologists have long defined the geological time scale primarily based on major disruptions to life on Earth. Eras, periods, and epochs, particularly their boundaries, were ...

“A myriad of geological signals reflect this fact.” The Anthropocene issue has polarized scientists in a way that few issues in the history of the geological time scale ever have.

A committee of roughly two dozen scholars has, by a large majority, voted down a proposal to declare the start of the Anthropocene, a newly created epoch of geologic time, according to an internal ...

Geologists categorize time by looking at changes they see in the earth’s rock or sediment layers. Take the very dramatic example of the end of the Mesozoic era, when dinosaurs went extinct.

The proposal to add an Anthropocene Epoch to the geological time scale was rejected for a variety of reasons, none of them related to the fact that human societies are changing this planet.