When looking at R'lyeh's location on Google Earth I noticed that it was relatively close to a divergent tectonic boundary. So I did some researching and found that the Pacific plate at that location is moving roughly 10cm a year. The location of R'lyeh (according to Lovecraft) places it roughly 780km from that boundary, which means that the city itself could be no older than 7.8 million years. How's that for some fan-hardened geekiness!?

That still places it about 7 million year prior to humanity, and that is still asuming it is rooted to bedrock and not moving with layers on the surface like volcanic drift

lol I think it's a good age actually: 57 million after the dinosaurs, 7 million before humans.

Just so long as you place the Elder Thing cities before the emergence of organic life, I'm happy.Hmm... you know those textbook-type timelines? You know, with coloured pictures of the various animals labelled on the timeline and stuff? http://www.science-art.com/gallery/45/45_3172005113726.jpg It would be weirdly satisfying if someone did one for the Mythos...

I have actually seen a timeline (sans pictures), but can't remember where... I might go looking now...EDIT:Ok, I found a few (though they all seem to be based on the same info) and they place R'lyeh's building at around 200-million years ago. One even places it at 350 million yrs. Guess none of them factored in plate tectonics ^_^

Well, atMoM says:"It was under the sea, at first for food and later for other purposes, that they [the Elder Ones] first created earth-life [...] having manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of moulding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs [ie. Shoggoths] [...] When the star-headed Old Ones on this planet had synthesised their simple food forms and bred a good supply of shoggoths, they allowed other cell-groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes". So, the way I understand it is that the Elder Things (or Old Ones as they are referred to here) created all life on Earth from scratch, including prokaryotic life which, in some cases, was allowed to evolve into eukaryotic life, as well as building the shoggoths from scratch. (It's also possible that shoggoths are the source of all earthly life, giving a kind of kick-start to evolution due to their unique properties, but I guess mythos theories get a little fuzzy and uncertain here.)

The evolution timeline would be cool, but correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't it just consistist of 'Elder Things arrive - make life - then everything after is the normal evolution of the earth? Probably missing something.But the timeline could have everything in it, not just evolution.I saw a timeline ages ago that went into everything from the Yithian arrival and war, the elder things, and other things like Cthulhu's arrival on Earth and all other mythos milestones. No idea where it was though.There's a timeline in the Mythos Encylopedia but I don't have it to hand.