Talk:Phanerozoic

AMK152's Geotimeboxes
AMK152 proposed in edits of 27 December 2006 a geotimebox for this article. I feel that the box information that is appropriate for the article is already in the footers, and that other information can be supplied where important, by links from the text. See discussion at Template talk:Geotimebox. --Bejnar 20:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

A Return to Phanerozoic Average Sea Level?
Might we be near the end of a large cyclical regression; not so different from Permian end regression? Statistically might it not seem more likely that we are due to revert at least towards an average of sea level for overall Phanerozoic, or even a further transgression? Might this be a natural underlying trend, independent of any superimposed anthropomorphic effect? Might we be headed for an Eocene/Paleocene world? A world with no ice; courtesy of east Antarctica going in ~15,000 years?

30 million years hence, what might our 'present' stratum (pl: strata) of say 10 million years look like? Might there be any evidence of mankind? For example, if we occupy the middle of such strata, then plus or minus 5 million years. For the past 5 million years, there was no effect. For the future 5 million years, transgression and Yellowstone's Western and Midwest repeated ash fallout would seem to reveal nature's dominant hand. For 100-200 meter elevation of sea level to less than Cretaceous peak, most of southern U.S. would be inundated, and likewise for eastern coast. The Seaway would flood and enlarge Great Lakes into an inland sea. All coastal cities, and inland lake ports would become reefs initially, and then dissolution. Humanity would would once again be on the move. Therefore, might there be no evidence of mankind's handiwork in such strata (stratum); not even hard plastic cherts? So from a geological perspective, mankind's impact on the environment might be quite negligible, in comparison to nature's broader, deeper, more sustainable ways. Does our myopia greatly underestimate nature's scope and impact, in comparison to that of mankind's? 12.72.148.77 (talk) 19:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Mistranslation
The article states that the name comes from "the Greek words φαίνω and ζωή, meaning make life appear"; not quite, zoon refers to animals, not life in general (rather a kingdom-ist perspective, I suppose). I'd change it, but I'm having trouble with my non-Latin character sets.--Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 19:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Always a problem when people who have little or no Greek (or any language) get into arguments about it. ζᾧον (zô(i)on) is indeed Greek for 'animal', but ζωή is 'life'. The current 'visible life' is absolutely accurate. Koro Neil (talk) 03:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

'British' spelling?
Why on earth would the Brits spell it with ae? The ae digraph represents an either original Latin ae or a Latinisation of an original Greek αι (ai). Standard American spelling simplifies ae to e in either case. The Greek word for 'visible' is φανερός (phanerós). Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon do not record a spelling *φαναιρός, and there is no justification for it. The ae spelling has over 4000 Google hits, so I'll leave it, but some expert British input would be good here. Koro Neil (talk) 03:27, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Eras of the Phanerozoic
I've added a description of each era in the Phanerozoic a couple of days ago, and also placed the descriptions to the corresponding articles (Mesozoic article gets the description of the periods of the Mesozoic, Cenozoic article gets the description of the Cenozoic, and the Paleozoic article gets the description of the Paleozoic...) Tell me what you think! Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:51, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Factual errors
The Paleogene section claims that "Paraceratherium, the largest land mammal to ever live evolved during this epoch". However, the Largest organisms page states, "The largest known species was for many decades considered to be Paraceratherium orgosensis, a rhinoceros relative thought to have stood up to 5.5 m (18 ft) tall, measured over 9 m (30 ft) long and may have weighed up to 20 tonnes.[55] However, more recent estimates suggest that it was surpassed by the proboscidean Palaeoloxodon namadicus at about 22 tonnes." — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiWynn (talk • contribs) 19:46, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Biodiversity section
The Biodiversity section seems to be a bit focused on a single paper. "Hyperbolic growth of marine and continental biodiversity through the phanerozoic and community evolution". This only has 6 citations.  It seems rather undue weight for this theory. --Salix alba (talk): 08:36, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Phanerozoic. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150225011508/http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/pliocene.html to http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/pliocene.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:57, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Snowball Earth
The Ordividcan and Silurian sections refer to a 'snowball earth' extinction between them. But the Snowball Earth article says that all such periods came before the Phanerozoic. Maybe there's a different term for the Phanerozoic frozen event? OsamaBinLogin (talk) 08:10, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I come here to ask the same thing. I think that it takes the idea of a massive glaciation but the concept Snowball Earth refers to a prior event. -Theklan (talk) 16:05, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I believe the correct general term is icehouse Earth while Snowball Earth is a specific severe glaciation in the Neoproterozoic. I've gone ahead and made the change. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:47, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Miocene.jpg

Text removed for present
I've removed this text for the present as it is unreferenced POV. It's not a case of 'most geologists would probably set. . .' - the boundary is already defined. Simple as that. WP has no business pretending to know 'what most geologists' would do.

Most geologists and paleontologists would probably set the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic boundary either at the classic point where the first trilobites and reef-building animals (archaeocyatha) such as corals and others appear; at the first appearance of a complex feeding burrow called Treptichnus pedum; or at the first appearance of a group of small, generally disarticulated, armored forms termed 'the small shelly fauna'. The three different dividing points are within a few million years of each other.

In the older literature, the term Phanerozoic is generally used as a label for the time period of interest to paleontologists, but that use of the term seems to be falling into disuse in more modern literature.

If a reference is located, it, or a variant of it, can be re-inserted into the article.cheers Geopersona (talk) 05:28, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Adding popular culture section
Would it be worth adding a mention of how the Phanerozoic Eon is referenced in the two The Ocean albums Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic and Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic / Cenozoic in a new "In popular culture" section? NegaNote (talk) 06:53, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I oppose the suggestion to include these music albums in a popular culture section in this geological article. The albums have their own articles, but they are not geologically notable. I think that any connection between this music and this geological article is trivial. I think the band have found a supply of unusual, exotic geological names to use as titles of their albums and tracks but that does not justify inclusion of their music albums in a geological article. GeoWriter (talk) 13:33, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. NegaNote (talk) 21:21, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Scope of chronology in infobox
Regarding the infobox's visual "chronology" timeline, can we narrow the scope to just the Phanerozoic, to show its details? (I don't know where to start with creating a Phanerozoic graphical timeline template)——JavaRogers (talk) 23:06, 15 May 2021 (UTC) [Revised 03:01, 16 May 2021 (UTC)]
 * Nevermind. I figured out the template syntax.——JavaRogers (talk) 04:27, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

dates wrong
https://stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2020-03.pdf gives a date of 541Ma - I tried to correct, but it has not worked in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.31.26 (talk) 02:53, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
 * That may be out of date already., do you have a cite for the 538.8 number? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I do, here. This cites the ICS's official time scale that they released in February of this year (2022). The changelog of the timescale (cited here ) explains that this date was changed by "request of SCaS (Per Alberg, Maoyan Zhu)". The change has not been made to a lot of other official documentation on the website just yet, but changes generally take a while to be implemented across the entire ICS website, especially where date changes are concerned. Benniboi01 (talk) 15:15, 22 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks. With the sources updated on this page, that ought to settle the issue of dates for now. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:00, 22 April 2022 (UTC)