Geological Timeline

This page contains a brief history of events on a geologic scale beginning with the late Quaternary and ending in the middle Second Carboniferous, dated according to the Gregorian Calendar.

Quaternary Period: Anthropocene Epoch

 * Beginning of the Sixth Mass Extinction
 * The earliest events of the Sixth Mass Extinction are not primarily driven by humans but by the end of the Ice Age and the creation of an environment unsuitable for Holocene megafauna. Human hunting activity places pressure on already struggling megafaunal populations, and continues to place modest pressure on other animal populations throughout the majority of human history.
 * Industrial Revolution
 * Around 1760 CE, the invention of new technologies in human civilization creates a period of intense social and economic change, resulting in the emission of pollutants from factories.
 * Present
 * About 2020 CE. Human activity continues to place pressure on the environment. Pollution from plastic is significant. Natural disasters increase in frequency and intensity, with the global temperature rising dramatically.
 * Attempted Climate Reparation
 * Around 2030 CE, the window for humans to intervene and prevent the Sixth Mass Extinction, as well as their own destruction, has passed. Attempts are made to soften the impact, including bioengineered creations such as Plastic Insects and Engineered Cyanobacteria, but these have little immediate effect.
 * Dissolution
 * By 2050 CE most human governments are on the verge of collapse. Several failed attempts at a mass migration to Mars have taken place. Capitalism continues to prey on what civilization there is left. Areas around the equator are nearly uninhabitable to humans. Full ecosystem collapse occurs in the more sensitive areas of the world.
 * Human Extinction
 * Remnants of human civilization manage to exist in small numbers in the remote corners of the world. The last human dies in 2150 CE.
 * Continued Mass Extinction
 * The Sixth Mass Extinction continues, with the majority of complex life dying out by 10,000 CE. Significant survivors of the extinction include springtails, mites, ants, and spiders, but many other nonspecialized arthropods manage to survive also. Some small birds, rodents, and reptiles survive.
 * Final Events of the Mass Extinction
 * Within the first 2 million years after the extinction of humans, Earth is hit by multiple significant non-anthropogenic disasters. Rapid magnetic reversal events, an asteroid impact, the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera, and a powerful gamma ray burst from the supernova explosion of WR 104 cause most large complex life not destroyed in the mass extinction to die out.
 * Evolutionary pressure is placed on certain predators, such as jumping spiders and fire ants. This leads to increased intelligence, resourcefulness, hardiness, lifestyle diversity, and sociality.
 * Reestablishment
 * Within the next 8 million years, the areas of land made uninhabitable by cosmic events, pollution, and climate change slowly recover and fill with life again, marking the end of the Anthropocene about 10 million years after humanity's extinction.

Second Carboniferous Period: Recovery Epoch

 * Oxygenation
 * The Second Carboniferous begins with an extreme oxygenation event, which had been gradually building up since the release of engineered cyanobacteria. Volcanic events causing the mass release of carbon dioxide create a population explosion in the cyanobacteria and especially in the remaining trees, leading to mass forestation and a huge increase in the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere.
 * Arthropod Radiation
 * Small arthropods, such as springtails and mites, begin diversifying to fill the niches left open by the extinction and repopulating viable vacant habitats. Due to the increased oxygen levels, arthropods are able to grow larger than they did even in the first Carboniferous.
 * Radical Vertebrate Change
 * Vertebrates, and larger invertebrates, that managed to survive the extinction undergo rapid and radical change into new forms. For instance, the house sparrow evolves a eusocial lifestyle and becomes the tunneler.
 * Continental Drift
 * Earth's continents continue to move and rearrange themselves, playing out similarly to the Pangea Ultima model. Over the span of about 200 million years, the continents of Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica gradually combine into one landmass, while North and South America drift further apart.
 * Arthropod Sapience
 * In jumping spiders and some ants more complex brains developed during the late Anthropocene due to evolutionary pressure. Increased oxygen levels allow these organisms to grow larger, which in turn allows for even more brain complexity. The first definitively intelligent salticids emerge about 190 million years after the present.