Map by Ric'keya Boyd

Great Rift Valley

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:13:05 UTC

The Great Rift Valley is where tectonic plates started pulling apart. It provides evidence because the zones have fossil sites that document the evolution of early human ancestors and mammals during the Paleogene periods. This happened about 20 million years ago.

Antarctica

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:16:28 UTC

Antarctica shows evidence of climatic shifts and glaciers during the Cenozoic Era. Fossils from this era show that Antarctica was once warm and had forests. This is a good and prime example of global climate change over millions of years.

Lascaux, Montignac-Lascaux, France

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:21:12 UTC

The cave paintings were created about 17,000 years ago. This shows evidence of early human culture and the development of modern mammals during the Holocene times. They show the early environments of mammals during the Ice age.

Los Angeles, CA

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:26:51 UTC

The La Brea Tar Pits have thousands of fossils from the Pleistocene Epoch. These fossils include mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and other species that lived during the Ice Age.

The Jurassic Coast Chef, Lytchett Matravers, Poole, England, UK

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:29:52 UTC

This location shows fossils from the Mesozoic Era. Particularly from the Jurassic period. It contains fossil evidence of early dinosaurs, marine reptiles, and the seperation of the supercontinent Pangaea 185 million years ago.

Hell Creek Formation, Montana, USA

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:33:36 UTC

The Hell Creek Formation is one of the best fossil sites from this period, with evidence of dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops. It also marks the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Shishmaref, Alaska

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:38:14 UTC

During the late Pleistocene, the land bridge between Asia and North America allowed migration for early humans and other species. This region shows evidence of the Ice Ages and human migration into Americas

Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, USA

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:40:54 UTC

This location is famous for their Jurassic dinosaur fossils. The Dinosau in the monument has a large collection of fossilized dinosaur bones from 150 million years ago.

Burgess Shale, Trans-Canada Highway, Field, BC, Canada

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:43:23 UTC

The Burgess Shale is famous for the Cambrian Explosion fossils, which show the diversification of life about 505 million years ago. These fossils are soft-bodied creatures and show early animal life.

Chengjiang Fossil Site Museum, Chengjiang, Yuxi, Yunnan, China

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:45:12 UTC

This location is another source of Cambrian fossils from around 520 million years ago. It provides information into the evolution of early life, including early vertebrates and arthropods.

Russia

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:47:21 UTC

The Permian-Triassic Extinction which was 252 million years ago, is Earth's largest mass extinction event. This showed areas like China, and locations in Russia, where the shift from the Permian to the Triassic is visible in rock layers and fossils.

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:49:49 UTC

The rock layers exposed in the canyon's walls go back as far as the Proterozoic Eon, which was more than 1 billion years ago, through to the Paleozoic Era. The Cambrian layers show evidence of early marine life, and later Pangaea.

Canada

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:51:55 UTC

The Acasta Gneiss in the Canadian Shield is one of the oldest known rocks on Earth. It is around 4.03 billion years old. It provides evidence of the early Earth’s crust and tectonic activity during the Archean Eon.

Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 13:53:45 UTC

This is one of the best examples of Archean rocks. It contains some of the oldest rocks on Earth which was around 3.5 billion years old. It also contains early evidence of microbial life.

Pilbara, WA, Australia

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 15:08:40 UTC

The Pilbara Craton in Western Australia is an area containing some of the oldest rocks on the planet from around 3.5 billion years. It holds important geological formations which contain fossil evidence of the oldest known microbial life.

Isua Greenstone Belt, Nanortalik, Greenland

jasleneboyd97_2 — 2025-02-11 15:14:52 UTC

This location contains some of the oldest rocks on Earth from around 3.8 billion years. These rocks show early volcanic activity and how the earths layers were formed.