Cenozoic Era Age of Mammals(66 million years ago - Present)
| Quaternary Period (2 million years ago - Present)
Recent discoveries of Archaic Indian remains along Yellow Creek in northeast Cherokee County have pushed the date of earliest inhabitation of north Georgia back to 9,500 B.C. | Holocene Epoch The Age of Man(11,000 years ago - Present)
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Pleistocene Epoch (1.8 million - 11,000 years ago)
First forests begin to grow on the north Georgia mountains. |
Tertiary Period (66 - 1.8 million years ago)As oceans recede, Georgia's coastal plain is exposed. | Neogene (23 - 1.8 million years ago) | Pliocene Epoch (5 - 1.8 million years ago)
Erosion creates the Georgia piedmont |
Miocene Epoch (23 - 5 million years ago) |
Paleogene (66 - 23 million years ago) | Oligocene Epoch (37 - 23 million years ago) |
Eocene Epoch (58 - 37 million years ago) |
Paleocene Epoch (66 - 58 million years ago) |
Destruction of the Dinosaurs 66-65 million years ago. |
Mesozoic The Age of Dinosaurs (250 - 66 million years ago)
| Cretaceous (135 - 66 million years ago)
First mammal, bird and insect groups appear.Sand from the Appalachian mountains begins to form Georgia's coastal plain |
Jurassic (205 - 135 million years ago)
Large dinosaurs roam the earth. Named for the Jura Mountains between France and Switzerland |
Triassic (250 - 205 million years ago)
Earliest dinosaurs appear.
Creation of Lookout Mountain and rock croppings in the Stone Mountain area. |
Paleozoic (570 - 250 million years ago) | Permian (290 - 250 million years ago) Erosion in North Georgia destroyed all evidence of this period |
Carboniferous (365 - 290 million years ago)
Large swamps characterized this period, especially in North Georgia. They eventually became coal fields (Dade County).
| Pennsylvanian (310 - 290 million years ago) |
Mississippian (365 - 310 million years ago)
Appalachian Mountains undergo a third episode of mountain building (Allegheny Orogeny) . Formation of Stone Mountain completes |
Devonian (400 - 365 million years ago) Stone Mountain begins forming. Appalachians were undergoing a second episode of mountain building (the Acadian Orogeny) |
Silurian (425 - 400 million years ago)
North Georgia mountains erode into a vast inland sea covering much of north Georgia. brachiopods, cephalopods, crinoids, and trilobites form fossil evidence |
Ordovician
(500 - 425 million years ago) Shallow marine environments. Fiirst of three episodes in the formation of the Appalachians |
Cambrian (544 - 500 million years ago)
Rock formations near Clark's Hill |
| Vendian (650 million - 544 million years ago)
First evidence of life. |
| Precambrian (Beginning of earth - 650 million years ago)
Creation of the Cohutta Mountains and some areas of the Southern Appalachians |