Geological Periods and Williston Basin Oil Formations

Tertiary (1.64 - 65 million years ago)

Pliocene 1.64 - 5.2 mya
Miocene 5.2 -23
Oligocene 23 - 34 Alpine evolution
Eocene 34 - 56
Palaocene 56 - 65 Mammals and birds diversity

Great Extinction, "End of the Dinosaus," 

Mesozoic (65 - 251 mya)

Cretaceous 65 - 145 chalk deposited widely
Jurassic 145 - 199 modern oceans widen: Pangaea breaking up into Laurasia, Gondwana

Triassic 199 - 251

GREAT EXTINCTiON

PANGAEA supercontinent - 300 - 200 mya late Paleozoic to early Mesozoic

Upper Paleozoic (416 - 251 mya)

Permian 251 - 299
Carboniferous 299 - 359, Ice Age, coal swamps; Tyler, Heath, Madison Grp (Mission Canyon, Lodgepole)
Devonian 359 - 416, fish and amphibians;  Bakken, Three Forks, Birdbear, Duperow,
Winnipegosis

Lower Paleozoic (416 - 542 mya)

Silurian 416 - 443, Caledonian mountains at zenith, caused by closure of Iapetus Ocean when land masses closed/collide; colonization of the land
Ordovician 443 - 488, Iapetus Ocean at its widest, 600 - 400 mya; Red River formation
Cambrian 488 - 542, Iapetus Ocean, southern hemisphere, precursor to Atlantic Ocean, trilobites and other marine animals appear;

Precambrian (542 - 4,550 mya)

Proterozoic 542 - 2,500
Archaean 2,500 - 3,500
(Hadean) 3,500 - 4,550

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 Laurasia and Gondwana, 150 mya as Pangaea is breaking up
Pangaea Supercontinen, 300 - 200 mya
Lauraia, the northern continent -- Gondwana, the southern continent (500 - 200 mya) 

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The break-up of Pangaea 

The break-up of Pangaea occurred in three stages (from wiki)

First phase: began in the early-middle Jurassic, about 175 mya -- ultimately giving rise to supercontinents Laurasia and Gondwana; multiple failed rifts, but one rift resulted in new ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean. The South Atlantic did not open until the Cretaceous.

Second phase: began in the early Cretacous (150 - 140 mya) when the major Gondwana separated into multiple continents (Africa, South America, India, Antarctica, and Australia). Atlantica (today's South America and Africa) finally separated from eastern Gondwana (Antarctica, India and Australia). In the middle Cretaceous, Gondwana fragmented; South America started to move westward away from Africa. Madagascar and India separated from each other in the late Cretaceous (100 - 90 mya). India continued to move northward toward Eurasia at 15 centimeters (6 in) a year (a plate tectonic record), closing the Tethys Ocean, while Madagascar stopped and became locked to the African Plate. 

Third phase: occurred in the early Cenozoic (Paleocene to Oligocene). Laurasia split when Laurentia (North America/Greenland) broke free from Eurasia, opening the Norwegian Sea (60 - 55 mya). The Atlantic and Indian Oceans continued to expand, closing the Tethys Ocean. Australia split from Antarctica and moved rapidly northward, just as India did more than 40 million years before. South America began to move in a northward direction, separating it from Antarctica and allowing complete oceanic circulation around Antarctica for the first time. The latter of which, together with decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations caused a rapid cooling of Antarctica and allowed glaciers to form. The break-up of Pangaea continues today in the Red Sea Rift and East African Rift.

Mass extinction events (from Fortey's book)

• "Snowball Earth" -- late in the Precambrian; earth pretty much an iceball; 600 mya
• End Ordovician: another ice age; 444 mya
• Near-end Devonian: 378 mya
• End Permian "great dying": 251 mya
• End Triassic (201 mya)
• The great Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) event; 65 mya