In this project we were asked to make a timeline of Earth since the beginning of time and describe events. We found that much of Earth's evolutionary history happened relatively quickly. Three major events in Earth's history were the dinosaur extinction, the Cambrian Explosion, and the ice age. The dinosaur extinction happened in the Cretaceous/ Paleocene periods. The extinction is so significant because if dinosaurs had not been killed off, Earth today would look very different. We know this simply because the dinosaurs were massive and they would affect organisms' sizes and lifestyles today. The Cambrian Explosion happened in the Cambrian period. This 'explosion' was actually a huge diversification of life on Earth. This is so significant because without this diversification, mammals would have either evolved much later, much less complex, or not at all. The ice age happened in the Pleistocene period. The ice age was an important event to Earth because it changed the entire Earth's look. Humans were alive during the ice age, and they were isolated because of the ice formations. For example, humans went across an ice bridge to Australia but once the ice age ended, they couldn't leave the continent so they were isolated from much of the other humans on Earth. Below are a series of pictures of portions of the timeline of Earth's geologic history my group and I made in biology class.
Earth's scale of its history is very unbalanced. It surprised me how much of Earth's change happened so recently (in terms of Earth's history). The 10 meter timeline wasn't as much for periods to be spaced out, but more for them to be clumped together after only a few periods were spaced out. We have had a huge impact on Earth in such a short amount of time. In the tiny period of modern society, we have caused global warming, changed the atmosphere, not valued our resources, and caused lasting damage. We have not been aware enough to understand that Earth is precious until it was too late. I think people simply can't comprehend the idea that such a small thing they do would ultimately affect our entire Earth, and mindsets like that are how humans have destroyed Earth. I have a few questions and wonders though. What measures can be taken to save our Earth? How can I educate and make people listen to the importance of conserving the planet? I wonder how the Earth managed to change so drastically so quickly. How did humans cause so much damage in so little time? All these things are on my mind; especially the well-being of Earth itself.
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