an emergent
website design
by
peter jay stein, md, ma
atmosphere
asthenosphere
lithosphere
regolith
biosphere
hydrosphere
This 54 page synopsis of the evolution
of the Earth, the origin and progression of life, and the
emergence of humans as descendants of the hominin lineage, divides the last 4.57 billion years into progressively overlapping, imagistic, time segments, to outline our place in biological existence.
magnetosphere
ionosphere
FORTY-EIGHT
Emergent Pleistocene Epoch 2.6 mya - 11,700 ya
Features of the Pleistocene Epoch 2.6 mya - 11,700 ya
4) At the end of the Pleistocene, the mass extinction of large mammals, such as mastodons, camels, and giant ground sloths, are believed to be due, at least in part, to human hunters, and to the radical climatic changes (several ice ages).
3) Hominins, such as genus Paranthropus, and the continuation of genus Australopithecus continue to emerge, leading to Homo habilis, the earliest documented genus "Homo", a tool maker, and earliest master of fire and cooking, beginning 1.9 mya.
2) The time frame when humans evolve: Genus Homo sapiens emerges about 200,000 ya.
1) The Post-Pliocene period, which also has been termed the Quaternary period - the youngest stratigraphic sequences, also sometimes referred to as the Ice Age, an interval of oscillating extremes, which include the glacial and interglacial episodes, initiated about 2.6 mya, the Quaternary encompassing the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, and includes the Gelasian stage of the Late Pliocene (The Geologic Time Scale, 2012, p. 480).