Convert Megayears to Seconds
Convert Megayears (Ma) to Seconds (s) instantly and accurately.
Conversion Formula
s = Ma × 31556952000000
About Megayears
A megayear (1 Ma) = 10⁶ yr ≈ 3.156 × 10¹³ s - the timescale of geology and tectonic evolution. The K-Pg mass extinction at 66.0 Ma; Cambrian explosion ~538.8 Ma; Great Oxygenation Event ~2,400 Ma. Plate motion at 2-10 cm/yr = 200-1,000 km per Ma (Atlantic ~3,000 km wider since Pangaea rifting ~200 Ma ago). Background extinction rate measured in extinctions per million species-years. 1 Ma = 10⁶ yr.
About Seconds
The second (s) is the SI base unit of time, defined since 1967 as exactly 9,192,631,770 periods of the caesium-133 ground-state hyperfine transition at 0 K. Caesium fountain clocks realise this to ~10⁻¹⁶ (1 s lost per ~300 million years); optical lattice clocks (Sr, Yb) reach ~10⁻¹⁸. The second links to the metre via the defined speed of light c = 299,792,458 m/s exactly. 1 s = 1,000 ms = 1/60 min.
Quick Reference Table
| Megayears (Ma) | Seconds (s) |
|---|---|
| 1 Ma | 3.156 × 1013 s |
| 2 Ma | 6.311 × 1013 s |
| 5 Ma | 1.578 × 1014 s |
| 10 Ma | 3.156 × 1014 s |
| 25 Ma | 7.889 × 1014 s |
| 50 Ma | 1.578 × 1015 s |
| 100 Ma | 3.156 × 1015 s |