Biogeological chronology - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 541

Time
beginning
(mya)

Age
(mya) Eon Era Period Epoch Major events

Quaternary Holocene Current interglacial

(part of which is
sometimes called the
Anthropocene)

0.0117
(11 700 years ago)

0.0117

2.588 Pleistocene Series of interglacials

and glacials

2.588

5.332 Tertiary Pliocene 5.332

35-15 mya, 3-4 ◦ C
warmer than present but
cooling

23.03 Miocene 23.03

33.9 Oligocene Gets cooler from

Eocene. Antarctic ice
from 34 mya

33.9

55.8 Eocene Early Eocene warm 55.8

65.5 Palaeocene 65.5

99.6 Cretaceous 99.6

Upper End-Cretaceous

extinction

145.5 Lower 145.5

Jurassic CO 2 levels begin a slow,

variable trend down to
Quaternary levels

199.6

199.6

Triassic CO 2 levels rise to ≈ 5

times present level

251

251