Lower part Claremont canyon: chert, limestone. Quarry on west side of Inverness Ridge on Pt. Reyes Rd: chert, shale. La Honda area: basalt. Natural Bridges State park, Santa Cruz: shale. Road cuts in Monterey town: sandstone, shale. Pinnacles National Monument: Rhyolite volcanic rocks. (GH-ADH, p.24)
Miocene (less-recent) Epoch 22-6 Million Years Ago (E&IH, 1973, p.42)(LSA, Spg/97, p.6)
22 Million The evolution of grasses in the Miocene allowed for the evolution of horses on hard, dry plains. (NH, 6/96, p.24)
21 Million The impact of the modern San Andreas Fault, as distinguished from possible precursors, probably did not reach Middle California until about 21 million years ago. (GH-ADH, p.34)
20.6 Million A common ancestor to man and the apes, Morotopithecus bishopi, lived about this time. Its remains were unearthed in Uganda and indicate an animal about 4 feet tall, and weighing 90-110 pounds. It's suspected to have been a cautious climber and mostly fruit-eater. (SFC, 4/18/97, p.A5)
20 Million Late Paleozoic rocks are widely exposed in the Santa Lucia Range, but occur only as small patches in the Gabilan and Santa Cruz ranges. They are not native to this area and moved into Middle California only about 20 million years ago. (GH-ADH, p.23)
20 million The desert tortoise has been an occupant of the Mohave desert since at least this time. (Pac. Disc., summer, '96, p.26)
20 Million Researchers agree that by this time cetaceans looked quite similar to those in the oceans today. (PacDis, Winter/'96, p.18)
c20 Million Hot water escaping from magma laid down rivulets of metal in the Cerro Rico Mountain of Bolivia. (NH, 11/96, p.38)
c20 Million Dominican amber was formed about this time. It came from an extinct species of the legume tree, genus Hymenaea, on the island of Hispaniola. A similar deposit occurs in southern Mexico and these amber types contain a greater variety of life than does Baltic amber. (PacDis, Winter/'97, p.11)
20-8 Million Candidates for intermediate ancestors of man include Proconsul and Kenyapithecus from Kenya; Ramapithecus and Sivapithecus from India, Pakistan, China and Kenya; and Rudapithecus and Dryopithecus from Europe. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p. 582)
17 Million The centerpiece of Dr. Golenberg's research is DNA from a 17 million year old magnolia leaf. (WSUAN, Fall/95, p.5)
16 Million Orangutans estimated divergence from hominids. (NG, Nov. 1985, p. 585)
16 Million The Indian Ocean was in a state of upheaval driven by volcanic activity. Two coelocanth species may have diverged about this time, one near the the region of the Comoro Islands and the other off the Indonesian coast of Sulawesi. (SFC, 11/1/99, p.A2)
16-15 Million A huge asteroid hit Mars 16 million years ago and blasted rock into space. [The WSJ gave a date of 15 million] (SFC, 8/7/96, p.A9)(WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A1)
15 Million In Germany in 1725 the first fossil salamander was found. It was at first identified as human but later correctly identified as the extinct cryptobranchid named Andrias scheuchzeri and dated to 15 million years of age. (PacDis, Winter '97, p.36)
15 Million The Baha Peninsula began separating from the Mexican mainland. (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T8)
15 Million An ape genus called Equatorius was thought in 1999 to be among the first primates to leave the treetops and live on the ground. Some scientitst placed Equatorius into the Kenyapithecus genus. (SFC, 8/27/99, p.A7)
14-10 Mil Ape species moved from Africa into Europe and Asia. They initialy thrived but later became extinct. (SFC, 8/27/99, p.A7)
12 Million Volcanic activity results in the formation of the tuff of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and proposed site for the long term storage of radio-active waste. (Smith., 5/95, p.41-44)
12-10 Million Current scenarios have humans and orangutans split from other apes about this time. (SFC, 7/25/96. p.A3)
10 Million BP to 1000 AD
10 Million By Pliocene time, the continents had assumed their present outlines but a new phenomenon began to affect the earth. The climate grew colder. (DD-EVTT, p.285)
Gorillas estimated divergence from hominids. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p. 585)
10 million Ankarapithecus meteai, a 60-pound-fruit-eating ape, roamed the woodlands of central Turkey about 30 miles north of Ankara. A face and mandible were discovered in 1995. The ape was said to exist long before the evolutionary split that separated humans from chimps. (SFC, 7/25/96. p.A3)
10 Million In the Mohave National Preserve of Southern California volcanic formations of this age formed caves of congealed lava over 25,600 acres. (SFC, 4/21/99, p.A17)
10 Million The Great Rift Valley lakes of Africa originated about this time. (NH, 7/98, p.68)
10-5 Million The Galapagos islands emerged as volcanoes from the ocean. They are at the junction of two continental plates, over a stationary "hot spot" in the earth's core. (SFC, 12/4/94, p. T-5)
9 Million The predaceous hedgehog Deinogalerix lived in the Mediterranean Islands and grew to a large size. (NH, 7/98, p.56)
8 Million Humans diverged from chimpanzees about this time. [see 7-6Mil] (NG, Oct. 1988, p.463)
8 Million Antelopes split off from the sheep and goat lineages about this time, when the Tibetan plateau had almost reached its present height. (NH, 5/96, p.52)
8-7 Million The area where Los Angeles is in 1997 was at least a half-mile under water at this time. (SFC, 2/12/97, p.A1)
7.5-3.5 Million A biogenic bloom is believed to be part of this period, early Pliocene, when the Earth's high-latitude regions were much warmer than they are today. Biogenic blooms are also suggested for the Indian Ocean, the Pacific coasts of North and South America, and in the equatorial Pacific. (LSA, Fall 1995, p.35)
7 Million Rhinos disappeared from North America. (SFEC, 6/15/97, Z1 p.4)
7-6 Million Chimpanzees estimated divergence from hominids. Chimp genetic material is 99% identical to man. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p. 585)
7-5 Million Hominids, the larger family of two-legged creatures that split off an estimated 5 to 7 million years ago from the common ancestor of humans and modern African apes. (SFC, 10/22/95, p.1)m
6-5 Million Terminal Miocene Event. According to C.K. Brain, a profound cooling caused a rapid buildup of ice in Antarctica. Sea levels dropped 50-60 meters and rainfall in many places was strongly affected. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p. 582)
6-5 Million Humans split from chimpanzees and bonobos about this time. (SFC, 7/25/96. p.A3)(NH, 11/96, p.12)
Pliocene (more-recent) Epoch 6-2 Million years Ago
(E&IH, 1973, p.42)
5-1.8 Million The Pliocene Epoch. (ADH, GHMC,1979, p.24)
Road cuts between Tomales and Dillon Beach: sandstone. Road cuts in upper Claremont Canyon: sandstone, shale, conglomerate. Bald Peak and Grizzly Peak: basalt. Little Grizzly Peak: rhyolite breccia. Road cuts between Rodeo and Oleum: tuff. Coast south of Half Moon Bay: black shale. (GH-ADH, p.24)
Geological evidence show temperatures were much warmer at mid-latitude and sub-polar regions during the early Pliocene than they are today. (LSA, Fall 1995, p.35)
The sandy peninsula of Lake Wales Ridge of Florida evolved in isolation from the rest of the world when the rest of Florida was covered by ocean during the Pliocene. (PacDisc, Spring '96, p.6)
4.5 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
4.4 Million A partial skeleton in more than 90 pieces was found by a group led by Tim White, Gen Suwa and Berhane Asfaw in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia in late 1994. They name it Ardipithecus ramidus, which put it in a new genus and means ground ape root. A new argon-argon dating technique was used. (SFC, 10/22/95, p.4-5)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A2)(SFC, 4/23/99, p.A21)
4.38 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
4.25 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
4.2-3.9 Million Meave Leakey and Alan Walker found a previously unknown species named Australopithecus anamensis, near Kenya's East Lake Turkana, in
the form of jaw bones, teeth, arm and leg fragments. The leg bones suggested that it was clearly an ape-like but two-legged creature, making it the oldest proven bipedal prehuman. It was thought by the Chinese to have descended from an ancestor named Lufengpithecus. (SFC, 10/22/95, p.4-5)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A8)
4.05 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
4 Million Human tool use goes back about this far. (NH, 8/96, p.29)
4 Million Tiny foot bones and a tiny pelvis indicate that humans walked upright by this time. (NH, 6/97, p.16)
4-3 Million Mammoth first appeared in Africa. They have 58 chromosomes and are believed to be cousins of elephants, who have 56. (SFC, 10/21/99, p.A17)
3.92 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
3.70 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
3.6-3.2 Mil. A primate skeleton, australopithecine, from the Sterkfontein cave near Johannesburg, South Africa, was estimated at this age. Pieces of the almost complete skeleton began emerging in 1994 and a skull was reported in 1998. (SFC, 12/10/98, p.A10)
3.6-3 Million Australopithecus afarensis. Composite skull of adult male found in 1975 AD by M. Bush at Hadar, Ethiopia. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p.568)
3.5 Million Little Foot, the first set of bones complete enough to reconstruct the foot of an early bipedal, or two-legged human ancestors. Four foot bones were found in 1980 and re-analyzed in 1995 by Ronald J. Clarke and Philip Tobias of the Univ. of Witwatersrand. It suggests that the transition to human-type locomotion did not happen in one step, but in a series of changes. (SFC, 10/22/95, p.4-5)
Human type footprints were found at Laetoli, Tanzania. In 1978-79 Mary Leakey's team excavated the 75-foot long trail of 47 footprints most likely made by Australopithecus afarensis. (Hem., Dec. '95, p.24)(PacDisc, Spring '96, p.2)
3.5-3 Million A French team of paleontologists led by Michel Brunet on 1/23/95 discovered a lower jaw with 7 teeth and a separate canine of a hominid from this time period. The discovery was made in a dried lake bed of central Chad and named Australopithecus bahrelghazalia after the Arab name of a nearby river. (SFC, 5/23/96, p.A14)
3.32 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
3.3 Million A mile-wide asteroid hit the coast of what became Argentina. It may have abruptly cooled the climate and caused the deaths of 36 species of huge animals, that included giant armadillos and sloths. (SFC, 12/11/98, p.D11)
3.2 Million Donald Johanson found Lucy's 3.2 million-year-old bones in Ethiopia. (SFC, 10/22/95, p.4-5)
3.06 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
3 Million Dr. Donald C Johanson and an international team at Hadar, Ethiopia, discovered a female skeleton in 3 million year old strata and named it Lucy. Subsequent finds there and at Laetoli, Tanzania, led to the naming of a new species: Australopithecus afarensis. (NG, Nov. 1985, p. 564)
3 Million The 2 American continents were joined by the rising of a land bridge in Central America. Giant South American sloths began migrating north and gomphotheres, elephants with great tusks built like shovels, migrated south. This era is covered in the 1997 book: "The Monkey's Bridge: Mysteries of Evolution in Central America" by David Rains Wallace. This forced warm water north and cooling currents led to snow and glaciers and an Ice Age. (SFEC, 1/4/98, BR p.7)(SFEC, 9/19/99, Z1 p.3)
3 Million The Petrified Forest, 6 miles west of downtown Calistoga dates to this time. A volcanic eruption felled redwood trees that turned to stone. (SFEC, 2/22/98, p.T1)
3 Million Volcanic rock was carved by nature into fairy chimneys around Cappadocia in present day Turkey. (Smith., 5/95, p.10)
3-2.5 Million Australopithecus africanus. Skull of adult male found by R. Broom and T.J. Robinson in 1947 at Sterkfontein, South Africa. Named by Prof. Raymond Dart in 1924 after his analysis of the Taung child skull from a cave South Africa. Average age of sample teeth is 22 years at death, as analyzed by Alan Mann. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p.568, 578, 596)
3-2.5 Mil Teeth of Australopithecus africanus analyzed from this period indicate consumption of large quantities of carbon 13 from either grasses and sedges of animals that ate such plants or both. This was a transition period of movement from trees and forests to more open land. (SFC, 1/15/99, p.A11)
3-1 Million So far there seems to have been four genera in the human family tree: Ardipithecus near the root; several species of Australopithecus that lived between 1 million and 3 million years ago; an offshoot of vegetarian hominid species in the genus Paranthropus that co-existed for a while with Australopithecus; and the Homo line that emerged about 2 million years ago. Paranthropus was characterized by brains not much bigger than modern chimpanzees, but huge jaws and teeth, that implied a diet of tough roots and nuts. (SFC, 10/22/95, p.4)(SFC, 1/23/97, p.A5)
3-1 Million The Pistol Star, located between the Earth and center of the Milky Way, was first seen with infrared equipment in the early 1990s. It was measured to be 25,000 light-years away with a radius of 93-140 million miles. It was estimated to have formed 1-3 million years ago and shed much of its mass in violent eruptions estimated to have occurred about 6,000 years ago. (USAT, 10/8/97, p.3A)
2.94 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
2.90 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
2.80 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
2.8 Million A. afarensis seems to disappear from the fossil record. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p.595)
2.7 Million A major change in global climate occurred about this time that may have forced the hominid line to develop rapidly. (SFC, 11/19/96, p.A17)
2.6-2.52 Mil. Stone flakes, flake fragments, and cores of the Oldowan type from the Afar region of Ethiopia have been dated to this time. They were excavated between 1992-1994 along the Gona River. (AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.13)
2.5 Million The Paleolithic began with the first stone tools made by Homo habilis. (WH, 1994, p.19)
2.5 Million Stone tools, choppers and flaked cores, were made near the Gona River in central Ethiopia. Research on the tools was published in 1997 by Sileshi Semaw and Jack Harris. (SFC, 1/23/97, p.A5)
2.5 Million In 1999 scientists published the discovery of hominid fossil bones from the Awash River in Ethiopia. A team led by Berhani Asfaw and Tim D. White of UC Berkeley named the find Australopithecus garhi (southern ape-man surprise). (SFC, 4/23/99, p.A21)
2.5 Million Climactic change causing a re-expansion of the Antarctic ice sheets. Africa experiences a drying up, a reduction of wooded areas and a return of widespread open grasslands. Elisabeth Vrba's studies of the fossil record in South Africa show a peak in extinctions and new species. At this time the hominid lineage split, one branch leading to the robusts and the other to modern humans. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p.600)
2.5-2 Million Homo habilis appeared in eastern Africa. (WH, 1994, p.19)
c2.4Million Fossils suggest that the first members of the true human genus, species known as Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis, emerged about this time. (SFC, 1/23/97, p.A5)
2.43 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
2.33 Million Scientists identified a fossil jawbone as an early member of the genus Homo dated to this time along with some stone tools. The fossils were found at the Hadar site in northern Ethiopia's Afar badlands in 1994 by local team members Ali Yesuf and Maumun Alahandu but only dated in 1996. Scientists say that there were 2-3 different species of Homo living at this time. (SFC, 11/19/96, p.A1,17)
2.13 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
2.11 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
QUATERNARY PERIOD: 2 MILLION YEARS AGO To The PRESENT
(E&IH, 197
3, p.42)
2 Million to present Quaternary period. (RFH-MDHP, p.21)
2 Million Homo habilis. Skull of adult male found by B. Ngeneo in 1972 at Koobi Fora, Kenya. His span overlaps with A. boisei and corresponds with the appearance of simple stone tools. Habilis gave rise to the larger brained Homo erectus. (NG, Nov. 1985, p. 571, 576)
2 Million The ice first seems to have affected a wide spread about 2 million years ago. (DD-EVTT, p.301)
2 Million Mount Kenya, a volcano, was born. (NH, 6/96, p.26)
2-1.5 Million Australopithecus robustus. Skull of adult female found by Quarryman Fourie in 1950 at Swartkrans, South Africa. A survey of Robustus teeth by Alan Mann shows an average age at death of 17 years. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p.570)
Timeline: 65 to 1 Million Years BP Page 2
