Proterozoic

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Related to Proterozoic era: Mesozoic era, Palaeozoic Era, Precambrian era, Cambrian era

Proterozoic

that period of geological time lasting from some 2600 million to 589 million years ago; the part of Cryptozoic time excluding the Archaean Period. Fossils dating from this period are mainly CYANOBACTERIA.

Collins Dictionary of Biology, 3rd ed. © W. G. Hale, V. A. Saunders, J. P. Margham 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

It has always been thought that the Earth completely froze twice during the late Proterozoic era between 600 and 800million years ago.

WELL 'ARD MALLARD; Monster duck was 15ft tall and half a tonne It had legs like tree trunks and a huge head Its serrated beak was ideal for ripping up flesh

A team of geologists studying rocks from South Africa has discovered signs that ice reached all the way from the poles to the tropics 2.2 billion years ago, during Earth's Proterozoic era. This globe-girdling glacier was far larger than the ones in the recent geologic past, which extended only as far south as the Ohio River valley in North America and the Black Sea in Europe.

When glaciers covered the entire Earth

The marbles at Mosaic Canyon, polished by flooding, have origins in the Proterozoic era, which began nearly 1.5 billion years ago.