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History of the Earth in one calendar year

History of the Earth in one year

Interactive: What Earth’s 4.54 billion-year history would look like in a single year

Francisco Jose Testa, Lecturer in Earth Sciences (Mineralogy, Petrology & Geochemistry), University of Tasmania, writing in The Conversation, December 23, 2024 asks us to  consider our place in the greater scheme of things.

As a kid, it was tough for me to grasp the massive time scale of Earth’s history. Now, with nearly two decades of experience as a geologist, I think one of the best ways to understand our planet’s history and evolution is by condensing the entire timeline into a single calendar year.

It’s not a new concept, but it’s a powerful one.

So, how do we go about this? If we consider Earth’s age as 4.54 billion years and divide it by 365 days, each day of the Gregorian calendar represents about 12.438 million years.

Let’s say we want to calculate what “day” the Paleozoic started in our new Earth calendar. We just need to subtract 541 million years from the age of the planet and divide it by 12.438 million years. Simple, right?

As I ran these equations, I noticed something amusing. Some of the most significant events in Earth’s history coincide with major holidays in the Western world. By this reckoning, the dinosaurs went extinct on Christmas Day.

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A Sahul topography of around 65,000 years ago assuming a coastline at 85m lower sea levels than present. Credit: Nature Communications

Australia before humans arrived
This is what Australia looked like 75,000 years ago when seafarers entered into what’s now Australia through the ancient land of “Sahul” by Jamie Seidel, News.com.au  April 30, 2024

… From MMM Issue #48, Feb-Mar 2025