The geologic time scale is a chronologic schema (or idealised model) relating stratigraphy to time that is used by geologists, palaeontologists and other earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth. The table of geologic time spans presented here agrees with the dates and nomenclature proposed by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, and uses the standard colour codes of the United States Geological Survey.
Ed ~ The final committee vote was announced on the 21st May, 2009. The Quaternary period now officially covers the past 2.6 million years of the geologic time scale.
The Quaternary period is the youngest of three periods of the Cenozoic era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows after the Neogene period, spanning 2.588 ±0.005 million years ago to the present. Read more