Template:Period span/brief/doc

Why it is here

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To provide a time span (from start to end) in millions of years for a geological period or pair of geological periods. The time span will automatically update when new information is available. The numerical part of the time span is linked to a graphical display.

There are two ways of using the template:

  • {{Period span/brief|period name|rounding (optional)}}
  • {{Period span/brief|first period name|second period name|rounding (optional)}}.

Examples:

The last optional parameter can be set to 1, 2, etc. to display that number of decimal places, or to -1, -2, etc. to round to the nearest 10, 100, etc. years. The default is 0, i.e. no decimal places are shown. If you do want to display decimal places then, except for very recent times, you should probably instead use the template {{Period span}}, which avoids an impression of spurious accuracy by including error bounds. Note that decimal places will not be shown if they are not present in the source data.

Examples:

Errors

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If this template makes an error, it is likely to be because the period is missing from (either) {{next period}} or {{period start}}. Please go ahead and add it in the corret place (once you've checked your spelling!).

You also need to add the period to {{period start error}} so that other templates which display geological dates, such as {{period span}}, which shows more details, will work fine.

Sources

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For documentation on the sources of the dates and other information, see Template:Period start.