Paleozoic Era

The Paleozoic Era

541-252 million years ago

Planetary Conditions

Life on Earth

Major Events

Interesting Facts!

• Cambrian Explosion: This event marks a drastic increase in the amount of and diversity of life on Earth. Occuring at the start of the era, many new forms of marine life appeared who would be the basis for much of the furute life on Earth
• Permian-Triassic Extinction Event: This is the largest extinction event in the history of Earth. Its believed to be caused by a mixture of volcanic activity and climate change. 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species went extinct.

• The cambrian explosion at the start of this era brought about much complex life. With many new creatures and adaptations.
• During this era terrestrial plants appeared and over time evolved into organisms like trees, forming large swaths of forest for a time.
• Marine life became much more complex and diverse with trilobites, fish, placoderms, sharks and many other organisms coming into being
• This era marked the first terrestrial life. Terrestrial life then evolved with reptiles, synapside, and eventually stem-mammals appearing.

• For the most part the atmosphere contined oxygen, however several extinctions throughout this era are caused by decreases in oxygen levels for a time.
• This era did include an ice age caused by a decrease in carbon dioxide.
• The Paleozoic era was home to some of the first trees and thus the Earth first had forests during this time.
• Pangea formed, and this super continent would be covered in lots of arid deserts.

• The Paleozoic era contains six different periods. The end of each of these periods are marked by a mass extinction event.
• This era saw many new plant based ecosystems for the first time such as rainforests, woodlands, and grasslands.
• The name of the Paleozoic era means ancient life. This is when notable ancient species such as trilobites and placoderms lived.
• Even during the generally warmer climate of Pangea the Earth still experienced several phases of glaciation-deglaciation.
• The evolution of life during this time repeated several patterns of mass extinctions followed by largescale biodiverisfication events

References:

References: Davydov, Vladimir I. "Late Paleozoic climate; constraints on warming and cooling from the benthic Foraminifera record." Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America, vol. 40, no. 6, 2008, pp. 403. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/late-paleozoic-climate-constraints-on-warming/docview/2365001464/se-2. Harper, David A. T., et al. "Early Palaeozoic diversifications and extinctions in the marine biosphere; a continuum of change." Geological Magazine, vol. 157, no. 1, 2020, pp. 5-21. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/early-palaeozoic-diversifications-extinctions/docview/2414596348/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0016756819001298.

This image shows several species of Placoderms. Armored fish which were very common during the middle of the Paleozoic era.