Exploring Georgia's Fossil Record & Our History of Paleontology
  • Items of Interest
    • Presentation; Oaky Woods Stratigraphy
    • I, Periarchus (A Fossil's Tale)
    • Coastal Plain Correlation Chart
    • Black & White Sketches
    • Contributing Artists
    • Public Fossil Locations >
      • South Houston County Fossils
      • Updated; Islands of the Savannah River
    • Georgia's Amateurs >
      • Amateur; Jared Dyche, On The Way To A Degree
      • Cam Muskelly, Duluth, GA
      • Kyle Keller, Valdosta, GA >
        • Kyle Keller Returns, Still Rocking!
      • Hank Josey, Dublin
      • Thomas Thurman, Warner Robins, GA
      • Bill Christy; Kamin Performance Minerals Fossils
    • Origins Of This Site
    • Georgia Fossils in the Smithsonian
  • Education Material
    • Georgia's State Fossil; Shark Teeth
    • Taking Georgia's Paleontology To Georgia's Classrooms
    • Georgiacetus Presentation; A Whale for Georgia
    • SW GA RESA 2018 Talk
    • Library & School Presentations
    • An Introduction To Fossils; Presentation
    • Georgia's Fossils Presentation; 500 million years
    • Free Fossils for GA Science Teachers; Crassostrea gigantissima
    • Georgia College Natural History Museum
  • Georgia's Lost Meteorite
  • Evolution in Georgia's Fossil Record
  • 1: Georgia's Oldest Fossils; Archaeocyathids, At 513 Million Years Old
  • 2: Trilobites; 500 Million Years Ago
    • 2A; Murray County Stromatolites
    • 2B; A Trilobite Nest in Georgia
  • 3: Geologic Time
  • 4: Our Oldest Vertebrate?
  • 5: Georgia Before the Dinosaurs
    • 5A; Georgia’s Pennsylvanian Plant Fossils
  • 6: 200 Million Years Ago
    • 6A: Birth of the Atlantic Ocean
  • 7: Cretaceous Georgia, Dinosaurs & more
    • 7A: Georgias Pterosaur
    • 7B: So Many Sharks
    • 7C: Coelecanths
    • 7D: Xiphactinus vetus
    • 7E: Side-necked turtles
    • 7F: Marine Reptiles
    • 7G: Dinosaurs in Georgia
    • 7H: Deinosuchus (Terrible Crocodile)
    • 7I; The Blufftown Formation
  • 8: Suwannee Current, Gulf Trough, & Bridgeboro Limestone
  • 9: The Clayton Formation Report; By Hank Josey
    • 9A: The Georgia Turtle
  • 10: The Eocene; Georgia's Oldest Mammals
    • 10A: The Origins of Whales
  • 11: A Whale For Georgia
  • 12: Basilosaurids; The First Modern Whales
    • 12A: Basilosaurus cetoides
    • 12B: Basilotritus
    • 12D: Chrysocetus
    • 12E: The Redmond Mandible of Albany Ga
    • 12F; Houston County Basilosaurus to the Smithsonian
  • 12C: Cynthiacetus (Revised)
  • 13: Ziggy and The Museum of Arts & Sciences, Macon, GA
  • 14: Late Eocene
    • 14A: Eocene Fossils & Stratigraphy
    • 14B; Fossils, Impacts & Tektites Dating the Clinchfield Formation
    • 14C: The Tivola Limestone
    • 14D: Twiggs Clay Vertebrates
    • 14E: Ocmulgee Formation Vertebrates
    • 14F; Sandersville Limestone, By Hank Josey
    • 14I: Dating Late Eocene Sediments
    • 14J: Georgia's Tektites; Georgiaites
    • 14K; Shell Bluff; Georgia's Most Historic Paleontology Site
    • 14L; Taylors Bluff, Paleo Paddling the Ocmulgee River
    • 14M; Eocene Terrestrial Mammals From Gordon, GA
    • 14N: Fossil Ridge, A Stratigraphic Study in Oaky Woods Wildlife Management Area
    • 14O; Georgia's First Entelodont
  • 15: Early Oligocene
    • 15A: The Marianna Limestone
    • 15B; The Glendon Limestone
    • 15C: Undiffereniated Oligocene Residuum
    • 15D; Brissus bridgeboroensis; A New Echinoid Species From Georgia’s Bridgeboro Limestone
    • 15E: The Curious Steinkern Sea Biscuits of Red Dog Farm Road
  • 16: Bonaire GA Entelodont
  • 17: The Whale Eating Shark
  • 18: Miocene Epoch; 23.3 to 5.3 Million Years Ago
    • 18A; Miocene Terrestrial Vertebrates
    • 18B; Paul Fell, Rockhouse Cave
  • 19: Pliocene Epoch; 5.3 to 2.5 Million years Ago
  • 19A; Two Small Primitive Horses from Taylor County
  • 20: The Ice Ages; Pleistocene & Holocene Epochs
    • 20A; Clark Quarry's Mammoths & Bison
    • 20B: Pleistocene Vertebrate List
    • 20C: Georgia’s Eolian Dunes
    • 20D: Georgia’s Carolina Bays
    • 20E: Late Pleistocene Significant Events
    • 20F: Southeastern Thermal Enclave
    • 20G; Diamond Back Terrapins
    • 20H; A Kaolin Mine Beaver Dam
    • 20I; Pleistocene Vertebrate Fossils On Georgia’s Piedmont
  • 20J; Watkins Quarry Pleistocene Vertebrates, Glynn County, GA
  • 21: Humans in Georgia
  • 22: Geology of the Coastal Plain, 1911
    • 22A: 1911 Cretaceous Fossil Locations
    • 22B: 1911 Eocene Fossil Locations
  • 23: Coastal GA Locations (1957)
  • 24: Needed; The Georgia Geologic Survey

3: Geologic Time​

​By Thomas Thurman

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Here it would be appropriate to take a just minute and discuss what the term “geologic time” means and why it is so closely associated with the word “enormity”. 

I’ll do this as a nod to Dr. David Schwimmer who once corrected me for saying “…just a million years.” Since that was the phrase which got me busted, that’s the figure we’ll use; one million years.

If we broke that down into a timeline where each year was represented by one inch, our one million year timeline would stretch to 15.78 miles.

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To offer a sense of perspective, Americans landed on the moon in 1969. More than 3 feet back on our timeline.

In 1733 the first English settlers landed in what would become Savannah with a royal charter to establish the Province of Georgia. This is less than 25 feet back on our timeline.

Recorded human history is held to begin with written language sometime around 6,000 years ago; or 500 feet back on our timeline.
         

The 500 million year old trilobites we discussed lived about 7,890 miles back on that same timeline.
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Dr. Schwimmer’s point was that a great deal can happen in one million years. If we look at a research project over sea level change done in 2005 and led by Dr. Kenneth Miller at Rutgers University we see that in the last million years Earth has seen ten or more, large scale global ice ages where sea levels fell dramatically and at least eight instances of warming where sea levels stood more than 50 meters above modern coastlines.

References:
Geologic Time; personal communication: Dr. David R. Schwimmer, Columbus State University.

Sea Level change; The Phanerozoic Record of Global Sea-Level Change; Kenneth G. Miller, Michelle A. Kominz, James V. Browning, James D. Wright, Gregory S. Mountain, Miriam E. Katz, Peter J. Sugarman, Benjamin S. Cramer, Nicholas Christie-Blick, Stephen F. Pekar. Science, Vol. 310, 25 Nov 2005

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