Plant Evolution Timeline - Help

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This page serves as an introduction to the Plant Evolution Timeline.

You may also find the following page useful:

Important

When loading in data you may come across an error message such as "Unable to load data from file...". This is usually due to your Raven session timing out after the page has loaded, so when you try to read further files it refuses access. Simply refresh the page, login to Raven when prompted and the data will be able to be loaded as normal.

Plots - General

Each plot is associated with a checkbox, allowing you to turn on and off plots as you require. The checkbox labels are coloured to match the colour of the associate plot, allowing for quick identification of what information is currently being displayed. Below each checkbox there is a source info link. Clicking on this will bring up information detailing where the information used to produce that particular dataset was derived from; information allowing you to place the data in context with the lectures, and links to the original data.

Continuous Plots

Continuous plots are represented as a series of points joined by straight lines (i.e. there is no attempt to smooth the 'curve'). Some plots, when hovered over with the cursor, display the current date (the x-axis position of the cursor) together with the values of the plots at that point. The value labels are colour-coded, and the units can be found next to the checkbox label.

N.B. The labels are not interpolated; they simply show the value of the point immediately to the left of where the cursor is positioned, thus, if a value is given as 1337 for a point located at 300 Ma, but the next point does not occur until 250 Ma, then 1337 will be shown all the way between 300 and 250 Ma with no interpolation computed. Please consider this if using the quantitative data for any purposes.

Block Events

Some events occur over a particular time period. These are represented as blocks on the diagram, some as full-height blocks such as the ice ages, which are (relatively) short when compared with the timescales visible, others as narrow horizontal bars, such as those representing important evolutionary events. Where the start / end times are not exactly know, the bars fade in / out to show this, and can be clicked on to display more information about the event.

Point Events

Some events are single points in time, such as the emergence of certain plant species. These again can be clicked on to display more information and useful links about the species, but to aid the location of the required species, when the cursor is hovered over the event, a small box is displayed with the date and the species name, to avoid having to click on the event to find out what it relates to.

Timeline Key

Clicking on the central key will cause the timelines to zoom in on the selected period. To aid in knowing what period is currently being viewed, the period title will appear at the top of both timelines, together with appearing at the top of the page in the heading.

Together with zooming in, a bubble is displayed giving information about the duration of the period, a link to a Wikipedia page for that period, and images showing the positions of tectonic plates during that period.