Upper Triassic
| Eon | Era | Period | Epoch | Start Million years ago |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phanerozoic | Cainozoic | Palaeogene | Palaeocene | 66 |
| Mesozoic | Cretaceous | Upper Cretaceous | 100.5 | |
| Lower Cretaceous | 145 | |||
| Jurassic | Upper Jurassic | 163.5 | ||
| Middle Jurassic | 174.1 | |||
| Lower Jurassic | 201.3 | |||
| Triassic | Upper Triassic | 237 | ||
| Middle Triassic | 247.2 | |||
| Lower Triassic | 252.17 | |||
| Palaeozoic | Permian | 298.9 | ||
The Upper Triassic or Late Triassic is an epoch in the Mesozoic era. It was between 237 and ~201.3 million years ago.[1] It was the last of three epochs which make up the Triassic period.[2]
The other two periods of time that make up the Triassic are usually called the Lower and Middle Triassic.
Many early dinosaur species appeared for the first time during the Upper Triassic, including Plateosaurus, Coelophysis, and Eoraptor. Pterosaurs were common in the air, and Ichthyosaurs dominated the seas.
At the end of the Upper Triassic some catastrophic event or events caused the extinction of many animal species worldwide. Known as the end–Triassic extinction event, it was similar to the more famous event that lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs, except no one knows for sure what caused the event.
References [change]
| Precambrian (4.567 gya – 541 mya) | |
|---|---|
| In the left column are Eons, bold are Eras, not bold are Periods. gya = billion years ago, mya = million years ago | |
| Hadean (4.567 gya – 4 gya) | |
| Archaean (4 gya – 2.5 gya) | |
| Proterozoic (4 gya – 2.5 gya) | Palaeoproterozoic (2.5 gya – 1.6 gya)
Mesoproterozoic (1.6 gya – 1 gya) Neoproterozoic (1 gya - 541 mya) Tonian (1 gya – 850 mya) Cryogenian (850 mya – 635 mya) Ediacaran (635 mya – 541 mya) |
| Source | International Chronostratigraphic Chart 2013. International Commission on Stratigraphy, retrieved 8 April 2013. Divisions of geologic time – major chronostratigraphic and geochronologic units USGS, retrieved 8 April 2013. |
