#3120: Geologic Periods

XKCD comic, described below.
Transcript
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[A table with 3 columns, labelled: "Period", "My favorite part" and "My biggest complaint". There are 13 rows below the labels]

[Row 1: Period:] Precambrian [My favorite part:] Life develops [My biggest complaint:] Snowball Earth episodes

[Row 2: Period:] Cambrian [My favorite part:] Trilobites! [My biggest complaint:] Evolution could stand to calm down a little

[Row 3: Period:] Ordovician [My favorite part:] Earth might have had rings [My biggest complaint:] Scary volcanic eruption in North America

[Row 4: Period:] Silurian [My favorite part:] First land animals [My biggest complaint:] Earth's newfound mold problem

[Row 5: Period:] Devonian [My favorite part:] Big mountains in Boston [My biggest complaint:] Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was armor

[Row 6: Period:] Carboniferous [My favorite part:] Cool forests [My biggest complaint:] Bugs too big

[Row 7: Period:] Permian [My favorite part:] Pangea [My biggest complaint:] Google "The Great Dying"

[Row 8: Period:] Triassic [My favorite part:] Tanystropheus [accompanying the text in this cell is an image of a Tanystropheus and its characteristic elongated neck, with Cueball standing next to it for scale] [My biggest complaint:] Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan

[Row 9: Period:] Jurassic [My favorite part:] Birds [My biggest complaint:] Parasitoid wasps

[Row 10: Period:] Cretaceous [My favorite part:] Raptors [My biggest complaint:] Raptors

[Row 11: Period:] Paleogene [My favorite part:] Pretty horseys!!! [My biggest complaint:] Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum

[Row 12: Period:] Neogene [My favorite part:] Forests of Dracaena dragonblood trees [My biggest complaint:] Zanclean flood

[Row 13: Period:] Quaternary [My favorite part:] Burrito invented [My biggest complaint:] Whoever picked the name for the third period of the Cenozoic


(Sourced from explainxkcd.com)

Title text:Geologists claim it's because the earlier Cenozoic used to be called the Tertiary, but that's just a ruse to hide the secret third geologic period, between the Neogene and the Quaternary, that they won't tell us about.


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