The Indians said that after making the Earth, the Great Spirit simply dumped all the leftover rocks on the Big Bend. By anyone's measure, Big Bend is beautiful country. To those of us with an interest in geology, Big Bend is more beautiful yet. However, through techniques of geologic interpretation, scientists have constructed a timeline of geologic events that affected Big Bend during the entirety of the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic eras. The rest of this page is a geologic timeline divided into significant periods in the development of Big Bend.
Ancient history is at the top of the page, more recent history at the bottom.
When you encounter the shape of Texas, it represents the level of the ocean during the time period it is directly adjacent. The blue represents ocean and the brown represents land above the ocean. In Big Bend, the sediments deposited during the Cambrian were primarily sandstones, limestones, and dolomites. Marine life included trilobites, brachiopods, bryozoans, snails, clams, and sponges. Limestone and chert beds were deposited, some of which contain brachiopod, coral, cephalopod, and gastropod fossils.