Monday, December 19, 2011

mnemonic for an XKCD comic


So, according to the comic, the creator of the always entertaining XKCD comic never learned a good mnemonic for the geologic periods. That's too bad. Perhaps we can help him. Here are the ones I use:

Can Oscar See Down My Pants Pockets? Two Jasons Can Pick Noses.


Cambrian
Ordovician
Silurian
Devonian
Mississippian
Pennsylvanian
Permian
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Paleogene
Neogene




And for those of you who take the time to split of the Paleogene/Neogene (nee Tertiary) into epochs: Say it as one word (PEOMPPH)
Pronounced: "Pee-Ompff"


Paleocene
Eocene
Oligocene!
Miocene
Pliocene
Pleistocene
Holocene



And to keep the "P" epochs organized, "paleo" means old, so that one goes first, while the Pleistocene is often used synonymously with "Ice Age" and that was just before the Holocene. Of course, most of us who have been to a GSA meeting also have a handy pocket timescale (or something a little more substantial):



So, what's yours trick to remembering geologic time units? Perhaps we can send XKCD some suggestions...

5 comments:

  1. I've always used 'Camels Often Sit Down Carefully - Perhaps Their Joints Creak", which doesn't work for your silly and pointless subdivision of the Carboniferous, but works for all the rest of us ;-)

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  2. Sure, if you consider England to be the birthplace of paleozoic stratigraphy or something...

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  3. i always had:

    Can Otto See Down My Petroleum Pipe? That's Just Crazy!! Perhaps Every Man Peers Past Him!

    though i was talking about this the other day, and wondering if anyone has added an "A" at the end for Anthropocene. My friend suggested 'Perhaps Every Man Peers Past Him Already,' which works.

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  4. You forgot the Oligocene!

    We went through this exercise five years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chinchillas
    Often
    Slurp
    Down
    Much
    Pistachio
    Pudding
    To
    Justify
    Creating
    Poop
    Noises

    ReplyDelete