Usage
edit{{Mercurial range|first appearance (required)|last appearance|text to display|earliest=earliest putative fossil|latest=latest putative fossil|ref=References|prefix=anything to display before the range|PS=anything to display after the range}}
- Note The first parameter (bold above) may not be omitted; in particular it is an error to specify only
|earliest=and/or|latest=. Italic parameters are optional, bold required.
Illustrates the range of a mercurial period of time or a mercurial event, the geological range of a stratigraphic unit, or other ranges on a geological timescale. Intended for use in infoboxes. For the full earth counterpart of this template, see {{Long fossil range}}. For Proterozoic ages, see {{Proterozoic time scale}}. For Phanerozoic ages, see {{Geological range}}.
You can give a numeric range, or specify the periods involved (Mercurial periods currently do not work at the moment, This will be fixed in the future). The range will be quoted in text before the timeline, unless you specify a third parameter—leaving it blank will result in no text being provided.
To illustrate the range when dealing with stretches of time or events on Earth, you should use Template:Long fossil range, which works in exactly the same way as documented here.
You can also specify "earliest" and "latest" to add a "ghost" bar beyond the accepted fossil range. You can use these parameters for whatever you like; they may be useful in the case of disputed upper and lower boundaries for given periods of time.
Examples
edit{{Mercurial range|Paleoproterozoic}}
{{Mercurial range|Paleoproterozoic|Ectasian}}
{{Mercurial range|Paleoproterozoic|Ectasian|earliest=Eoarchean|latest=Ediacaran}}
{{Mercurial range|700|640|earliest=Paleoproterozoic|latest=600|PS= (see article for discussion)}}
{{Mercurial range|700|640|mid-late Cryogenian}}
{{Mercurial range|700}}
If you receive an error when specifying a period name, check you've spelt it right; if so, it probably isn't yet incorporated into the templates {{next period}} and {{period start}}. This is really easy to do, so feel free to add the period yourself to make future editors' lives easier!