Part B
A Correlated History of Earth: Hadean & Archean
The poster A Correlated History of Earth (see Figure 8-7) is a helpful resource for our journey through Earth's history. This infographic packs an abundance of detailed geological and biological information and is especially useful in comparing material of different ages.Some poster data may be slightly different than what are in current use, but that's due to scientific progress since 2004 (when this poster was published). Today's lab will focus on the bottom portion of the poster.
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Figure 8-7. A tremendous amount of information about Earth's history is contained on the poster A Correlated History of Earth. Highlighted at right is the symbol key and that part of the poster relevant to today's lab. |
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Answer Quiz Me! questions B11 through B20 using the A Correlated History of Earth poster (see the PDF link below). Today's lab will focus on the Archean portion of the poster.
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A Correlated History of Earth |
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See the symbol key for definitions of the many map symbols and features. |
Time, Tectonics, & the Oldest Rocks
The "Plate Tectonics and Geology Maps" column on the left includes global paleogeographic maps, with various symbols representing different tectonic plates. Tectonic, volcanic, and glacial events are also included. The next few columns show geologic time information, including eons, eras, period, epochs, etc. Their boundary ages are given along with more detailed nomeclature describing the time periods. One notable clarification is that the Archean is listed as the oldest era on this poster. That's because the Hadean Eon was not always recognized as an eon, leaving the Archean Eon to represent the time between the beginning of Earth's history and the beginning of the Proterozoic Eon.
Classic Localities
The "Classic Localities" column lists rock units of various ages from around the world. Specific information is denoted by different colors, letters, and symbols.
Impact Craters & Events
On this poster, proven impact craters are symbolized by dark orange, solid-outline circles, whereas possible impact craters are symbolized by light orange, dashed-outline circles.
Life Forms
The right half of the poster is devoted to describing a wide variety of life forms. Today, we are focused only on the Prokaryotae and Archaea areas at the bottom of the poster. Note that on this poster, "Kingdom Prokaryotae" represents what is now considered Domain Bacteria and "Archaea" represents Domain Archaea.