Construct your own geologic timeline.
Learning and memorizing the geologic timelines can be a tough task. One of the best ways to help visualize how the times associate and align with one another is by constructing an accurate timeline on a word processing program. Doing this allows you to see exactly how the ages, epochs and eras align and progress through geologic time.
Instructions
1. Open a new word processing document.
2. Click on "Insert" from the toolbar located at the top of the window and select "Quick Tables" from the drop-down menu.
3. Navigate to the matrix setup and click on it.
4. Edit the default labels to align with your geologic table. Make sure to contain at least four columns on your matrix.
5. Label the top of the four columns "Eon," "Era," "Period" and "Millions of Years Ago."
6. Insert the following four values, in order, under the Eon column: "Phanerozoic," "Proterozoic," "Archean," "Pre-Archean."
7. Insert the following six values, in order, under the Era column: "Cenozoic," "Mesozoic," "Paleozoic," "Proterozoic," "Archean," "Pre-Archean."
8. Insert the following 12 values, in order, under the Period column: "Quaternary," "Tertiary," "Cretaceous," "Jurassic," "Triassic," "Permian," "Pennsylvanian," "Mississippian," "Devonian," "Silurian," "Ordovician," "Cambrian."
9. Add the following numeric values, in order, under the Millions of Years Ago column: "1.6," "66," "138," "205," "240," "290," "330," "360," "410," "435," "500," "570," "2500," "3800 plus."
10. Highlight the Phanerozoic row and the aligning Eras, Periods and Millions of Years Ago values with the same color. The Phanerozoic eon should contain the Cenozoic, Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. In addition to these eras, the Phanerozoic eon contains all of the listed periods. The Phanerozoic age should cut off at the 570 million years mark. You can adjust the size of columns and rows by clicking and dragging on the one you want to enlarge or shrink. You can color code the cells by right-clicking and assigning a color to a highlighted scheme.
11. Color the Proterozoic eon with the Proterozoic era, no listed period, and the 570 through 2500 million years ago mark with the same color.
12. Color the remaining Archean eon accordingly.
Tags: order under, values order, values order under, Insert following, Millions Years, align with, Archean Pre-Archean
