The Concise Geologic Time Scale

This concise handbook presents a summary of Earth's history over the past 4.5 billion years as well as a brief overview of contemporaneous events on the Moon, Mars and Venus. The authors have been at the forefront of chronostratigraphic research and initiatives to create an international geologic time scale for many years, and the charts in this book present the most up to date, international standard, as ratified by the International Commission on Stratigraphy and the International Union of Geological Sciences. This book is an essential reference for all geoscientists, including researchers, students, and petroleum and mining professionals. The presentation is non-technical and illustrated with numerous colour charts, maps and photographs.

Jim Ogg is a Professor in the Department Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue University and has served as Secretary-General of the International Commission on Stratigraphy since 2000. As part of this role he developed the TimeScale Creator databases and visualization system (freely available at www.stratigraphy.org). His research specialties include Mesozoic marine stratigraphy, paleomagnetism, and climate cycles.

Gabi Ogg is a micropaleontologist and is responsible for the many time scale charts and other graphics in this book and numerous other publications.

Felix Gradstein is Professor of Stratigraphy and Micropaleontology at the Geology Department of the Natural History Museum of Oslo University. He was chair of the International Commission on Stratigraphy from 2000 to 2008, and under his tenure major progress was made with the definition and ratification and international acceptance of chronostratigraphic units from Precambrian through to Quaternary.