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A non-standard but widely used abbreviation for one billion (1,000,000,000) years, using the metric prefix G (for "Giga") to indicate a quantity of one billion ...
The geologic time scale is a way of representing deep time based on events that have occurred throughout Earth's history, a time span of about 4.54 ± 0.05 Ga (4.54 billion years). [3] It chronologically organises strata, and subsequently time, by observing fundamental changes in stratigraphy that correspond to major geological or ...
Although the term aeon may be used in reference to a period of a billion years (especially in geology, cosmology and astronomy), its more common usage is for any long, indefinite period. Aeon can also refer to the four aeons on the geologic time scale that make up the Earth's history, the Hadean , Archean , Proterozoic , and the current aeon ...
The Precambrian includes approximately 90% of geologic time. It extends from 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period (about 539 Ma). It includes the first three of the four eons of Earth's prehistory (the Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic) and precedes the Phanerozoic eon. [6]
In 1862, the physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin published calculations that fixed the age of Earth at between 20 million and 400 million years. [19] [20] He assumed that Earth had formed as a completely molten object, and determined the amount of time it would take for the near-surface temperature gradient to decrease to its present value.
The Boring Billion, otherwise known as the Mid Proterozoic and Earth's Middle Ages, is an informal geological time period between 1.8 and 0.8 billion years ago during the middle Proterozoic eon spanning from the Statherian to the Tonian periods, characterized by more or less tectonic stability, climatic stasis and slow biological evolution.
In 2015, biogenic carbon was detected in zircons dated to 4.1 billion years ago, but this evidence is preliminary and needs validation. [ 48 ] [ 49 ] Earth was very hostile to life before 4,300 to 4,200 Ma, and the conclusion is that before the Archean Eon, life as we know it would have been challenged by these environmental conditions.
It is commonly used as a unit of time to denote length of time before the present in 10 9 years. This initialism is often used in the sciences of astronomy, geology, and paleontology. The "billion" in bya is the 10 9 "billion" of the short scale of the U.S., [1] not the long-scale 10 12 "billion" of some European usage.