The Geological Timescale

Abstract

Scientists are continuing to unravel the events that might have occurred millions and billions of years ago in the earth’s history. However, from our human perspective, it is very difficult to appreciate the immensity of geologic time, considering the fact that the first modern man (Homosapiens), appeared only a mere 0.1 second ago in the earth’s ~4.54 billion year long history. Figure 6.1 gives a brief glimpse of the expanse of time for processes and events that commonly occur around us. There are two basic ways we can try to make sense of this vast geologic time, i.e., through relative and absolute dating.