Earth time
Geological evidence and dating tell us how continents, oceans and landscapes changed.
DEEP TIME / LAND AND PEOPLE
Long before the stories, the continents were moving.
From Pangaea's assembly and breakup to a world of flood stories, beginnings and returns. Earth's changes and the movement of stories unfold on different timescales.
Zoom into the timescale
If the full line represents the selected interval, the roughly 300,000 years of Homo sapiens occupy the segment at the right.
~200 million years agoToday
Homo sapiens: approximately 0.15% of this interval
Approximate scale. The appearance of a species does not date the origin of a particular myth.The chapters follow chronological order; their spacing does not represent equal durations.
01
About 300–200 million years ago
Continents joined together
Pangaea was a geological supercontinent. During this long interval, the lands now called North America, Africa, South America and Europe were connected. Its Chinese name Pangu Dalu is a translation; the Pangu myth is not geological evidence.
USGS · What was Pangea? ↗02
Beginning around 200 million years ago
Oceans open between continents
Pangaea gradually broke apart. Continents moved with tectonic plates over immense spans of time. Matching coastlines, rock formations and fossils helped reveal that history. The breakup began long before humans appeared.
USGS · This Dynamic Earth: Historical perspective ↗03
About 300,000 years ago to today
The storytellers arrive much later
Homo sapiens emerged in Africa. Human history includes migration, settlement and exchange. Questions about related stories require evidence on this much shorter timescale; the ancient joining of continents does not establish a connection between myths.
Smithsonian · Homo sapiens ↗Three different kinds of time
The history of texts and contact
When was an account recorded, and who was in contact? A surviving record does not necessarily date a tale's first telling.
Time inside a story
Before a flood, during survival, after catastrophe: narrative stages help us compare stories without assigning geological dates.