PALEOZOIC

ERA
Get ready for an
incredible adventure!
 Paleozoic Era
Paleozoic Era ( 541 - 252 million years
ago). The Paleozoic Era is named from
the Greek word meaning “ancient life”.

The oldest organisms on Earth arose

immediately before the start of this
age, in the Ediacaran Period, although
scientists had not yet identified them
when the geologic timescale was
created.
 Paleozoic Era
This era opened with the separation
of one supercontinent or world-
continent named Pannotia and
closed with the formation of
another supercontinent, called
Pangaea (about 300 million years
later). Organisms, specifically
plants, spread widely. The first
vertebrate animals settled on land.
THE SIX PERIODS OF
THE PALEOZOIC ERA
 Six Periods of the Paleozoic Era

From OLDEST to YOUNGEST!

The Cambrian Period : 541 to 485 mya

The Ordovician Period: 485 to 444 mya
The Silurian Period : 444 to 419 mya
The Devonian Period : 419 to 359 mya
The Carboniferous Period : 359 to 299 mya
The Permian Period : 299 to 252 mya
CAMBRIAN PERIOD
 Cambrian Period

541 to 485 million years ago

The Cambrian Period, part of the

Paleozoic era, produced the most
intense burst of evolution ever
known.
 Cambrian Period
541 to 485 million years ago

This period produced the most intense burst of

evolution.

The term "Cambrian explosion," "Cambrian

radiation," "Cambrian diversification," or
"Biological Big Bang" describes a period of time in
the early Paleozoic Cambrian Period that occurred
about 538.8 million years ago, during which there
was a sudden radiation of complex life.
Fossil of a Cambrian "sea monster."
IMAGE COURTESY ESBEN HORN
Cambrian Animals
 Cambrian Period

541 to 485 million years ago

The iconic arthropods of the

Cambrian were the TRILOBITES,
which left a huge number of
fossils.
 Cambrian Period
541 to 485 million years ago

The end of the Cambrian saw a series of mass

extinctions during which many shell-dwelling
brachiopods and other animals went extinct.
The trilobites also suffered heavy losses.
FOSSILS
TRILOBITE ANOMALOCARIS
ORDOVICIAN
PERIOD
 Ordovician Period
It is a geologic period and system,
and the second of six periods of
the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician
spans 41.6 million years from the
end of the Cambrian Period 485
million years ago to the start of
the Silurian Period 444 mya.
 Ordovician Period
During the Ordovician period,
part of the Paleozoic era, a rich
variety of marine life flourished
in the vast seas and the first
primitive plants began to appear
on land—before the second
LARGEST MASS EXTINCTION of
all time ended the period.
FOSSILS
Crinoids Cephalopods
SILURIAN PERIOD
 SILURIAN PERIOD
It is a geologic period and system
spanning 24.6 million years from
the end of the Ordovician Period,
at 443.8 million years ago, to the
beginning of the Devonian
Period, 419.2 Mya. The Silurian is
the SHORTEST PERIOD of the
Paleozoic Era.
 SILURIAN PERIOD
This is known for its most remarkable
biological event during the Silurian was
the evolution and diversification of fish.
Not only does this time period mark the
wide and rapid spread of jawless fish, but
also the appearances of both the first
known freshwater fish and the first fish
with jaws.
 SILURIAN PERIOD
In the mid-Silurian, the first species of
Romundina, a placoderm — a
primitive armored fish with a cartilage
skeleton — is earliest fish known to
have developed jaws. Eurypterids
were the apex predators of the
Silurian oceans. Eurypterids were
arthropods, probably most closely
related to modern horseshoe crabs.
 ROMUNDINA
The name Romundina honors Canadian
geologist and paleontologist Dr. Rómundur
Thorsteinsson of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Romundina, one of the earliest jawed fish,

was found to boast a mix of primitive
features seen in jawless fish and more
modern ones that appear in fish with jaws.
Its head had a distinctive anatomy, with a
very short forebrain and an odd "upper lip"
extending forward in front of the nose, they
said
What are arthropods?
Arthropods are the first animals to join
plants on land.

Some species grew to more than six feet

(two meters) in length and are considered
the largest arthropods ever to have lived.

Arthropods include an incredibly diverse

group of taxa such as insects, crustaceans,
spiders, scorpions, and centipedes.
What are arthropods?

Most arthropods are small

animals. Only aquatic forms are
able to attain substantial sizes,
because their bodies are
supported in part by the
surrounding water.
What are arthropods?

EXAMPLES

Insects, spiders, scorpions,

centipedes, and millipedes on
land; crabs, crayfish, shrimp,
lobsters, and barnacles in water.
EURYPTERIDS
 EURYPTERIDS
Eurypterids were the largest
arthropods, attaining sizes more
than 8 feet long! They lived from
about 460 to 270 million years
ago.

Eurypterids are now extinct.

FOSSILS
MOLLUSK LYCOPHYTE
DEVONIAN
PERIOD
 DEVONIAN PERIOD
The Devonian is a geologic period
and system of the Paleozoic era
during the Phanerozoic eon,
spanning 60.3 million years from
the end of the preceding Silurian
period at 419.2 million years ago,
to the beginning of the succeeding
Carboniferous period at 358.9
mya.
 DEVONIAN PERIOD
The Devonian, part of the Paleozoic
era, is otherwise known as the Age of
Fishes, as it spawned a remarkable
variety of fish. The most formidable of
them were the armored placoderms, a
group that first appeared during the
Silurian with powerful jaws lined with
bladelike plates that acted as teeth.
 DEVONIAN PERIOD
Theories put forward to explain this
extinction include global cooling
due to the re-glaciation of
Gondwana, or reduced atmospheric
levels of the greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide because of the foresting of
the continents. A major asteroid
impact has also been suggested.
 DEVONIAN PERIOD

iT is named after Devon, South West

England, where rocks from this period
were first studied. Map of the Earth
during the late Devonian, c. 370 mya.
FOSSILS
Echinoderms Tetrapods
CARBONIFEROUS
PERIOD
Scientists divide the Carboniferous into two
parts: the earlier Mississipian (359.2 million to
318.1 million years ago) and the later
Pennsylvanian (318.1 million to 299 million
years ago).
 MISSISSIPIAN
It is a subperiod in the geologic
timescale or a subsystem of the
geologic record. It is the earlier of
two subperiods of the
Carboniferous period lasting from
roughly 358.9 to 323.2 million
years ago.
 MISSISSPIAN
The Mississippian Period represents
the last time limestone was deposited
by widespread seas on the North
American continent. Limestone is
composed of calcium carbonate from
marine organisms such as crinoids,
which dominated the seas during the
Mississippian Period.
 PENNSYLVANIAN
Pennsylvanian subperiod, second
major interval of the Carboniferous
Period, lasting from 323.2 million to
298.9 million years ago. The
Pennsylvanian is recognized as a time
of significant advance and retreat by
shallow seas. Many non-marine areas
near the equator became coal swamps
during the Pennsylvanian.
 PENNSYLVNIAN
By the Pennsylvanian Period, the
evolution of terrestrial plants and
animals had advanced to the point
where true forests were developed
in lowland, coastal sites. The
presence of extensive, lush, swampy
forests characterizes North America
during the Pennsylvanian Period.
CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD
The Carboniferous is a geologic period
and system of the Paleozoic that spans
60 million years from the end of the
Devonian Period 358.9 Ma to the
beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9
Ma.
CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD

The Carboniferous Period is

famous for its vast swamp
forests, such as the one depicted
here. Such swamps produced the
coal from which the term
Carboniferous, or "carbon-
bearing," is derived.
CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD
All the landmasses drew closer
together as a result of tectonic plate
movements. The supercontinent
Gondwana occupied much of the
Southern Hemisphere.
FOSSILS
Meganeura Edestus
PERMIAN PERIOD
 Permian Period
The Permian period lasted from 299 to 251
million years ago and was the last period of
the Paleozoic Era.

During the Permian Period, Earth's crustal

plates formed a single, massive continent
called Pangaea. In the correspondingly large
ocean, Panthalassa, marine organisms such
as brachiopods, gastropods, cephalopods
(nautiloids and ammonoids), and crinoids
were present. On land, reptiles replaced
amphibians in abundance.
 Permian Period
Climate interpretations based on
the geochemical record, and
especially plots of isotopic ratios
through time, reveal as well that
the ice age was a widespread
worldwide event and waned
rapidly in mid- Late Permian
time.
 Permian Period

Among the animal groups suffering

major extinctions were the trilobites,
rugose and tabulate corals,
blastoids, placoderms and
pelycosaurs.
 Permian Period
The scientific consensus is that the
main cause of extinction was the flood
basalt volcanic eruptions that created
the Siberian Traps, which released
sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide,
resulting in euxinia, elevating global
temperatures, and acidifying the
oceans.
FOSSILS
SYNAPSID DIMETRODON
PALEOZOIC ERA
Paleozoic Era, major interval of geologic
time that began 538.8 million years ago
with the Cambrian explosion, an
extraordinary diversification of marine
animals, and ended about 252 million
years ago with the end-Permian
extinction, the greatest extinction event
in Earth history.
THANK YOU!