EON ERA PERIOD EPOCH

Holocene
Quaternary
Pleistocene
Pilocene
Neogene
Cenozoic Miocene
Oligocene
Paleogene Eocene
Paleocene
Cretaceous ~
Phanerozoic Mesozoic Jurassic ~
Triassic ~
Permian ~
Carboni- Pennsylvanian ~
ferous Mississippian ~
Paleozoic Devonian ~
Silurian ~
Ordovician ~
Cambrian ~
Proterozoic ~ ~ ~
Archean ~ ~ ~
Hadean ~ ~ ~

Paleozoic Era

• Paleozoic means “ancient life”.

• 541 million to 252 million years ago – span time
• First era of the current eon (Phanerozoic)
• Most deceptively fascinating time in Earth’s History
• Most chaotic of the three eras of the current eon
o Near constant revolutions in life
o Punctuated by catastrophic extinctions

Note:

• This era is often overlooked as a time of primitive and boring creatures

PERIODS IN PALEOZOIC ERA

Early Beginning

• Living things were extremely simple and not very dynamic

 Cambrian Period (541-485.4 million years ago)

Note:

“Cambrian Explosion”

o Burst of evolutionary innovation results of a whole environmental triggers.

Almost every major group of animals that exist today developed within the first 40 million years of
the Cambrian period, along with many game-changing adaptions;
• Calcified hard parts (Coronacollina)
• Flexible Limbs (Opabnia)
• Eyes (Hallucigenia)

• Early Cambrian
o Due to increase number of phytoplankton in the ocean, oxygen levels ramped up.
Allowing life to flourish.
o Changes in the chemistry of the oceans, brought by erosion, allowed animals to develop
shells and exoskeletons. Led to the information of new body plans;
▪ Burgessia
▪ Pelagiella
▪ Naraoia
o Anomalocaris
▪ First large predatory organisms – hunted worms and other soft bodied creatures
o Some animals like arthropods developed hard exoskeleton to protect themselves
o Pikaia and Haikoulle (ancestors of vertebrates) developed the ability to swim with a
flexible rod of cartilage to power their tail
• Cambrian-Ordovician Extinction Event
o ended 488 million years ago in a mysterious mass extinction
o lead to disappearance of many trilobite and mollusk species

Note:

o Sudden crash in oxygen level may have been the cause of this mysterious mass extinction.

Ordovician Period (485.4 – 443.8 million years ago)

Note:

• Known as “The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE)”

• GOBE was brought on by a host of changes in the environment
o About 470 million years ago, a burst of geological activity occurred, continents are
moving – creating new chains of islands and new isolated habitats
o Combined with the changes in sea level abd another boost of oxygen in the oceans,
stimulated a rapid change.
▪ Ostracoderms (first true fish), jawless and covered in bony plates.
 ▪ Cephalopods reached new lengths, like the shelled giant Cameroceras
▪ Plants sprouted on the primordial rocks.

• Ordovician-Silurian Extinction Event

▪ The massive number of plants on land took in so much carbon dioxide resulting
to ice age.
• This cold snap occurred 444 million years ago, just as marine oxygen
levels started to drop. This combination leads to mass extinction.
o Wiped out 86% of marine species, including many kinds of trilobite and cephalopods

Silurian Period (443.8 – 419.2 million years ago)

Note:

• In this period, climate gradually warm and plants started to spread over the land.
o Fossils of early vascular plants, like Cooksonia, first appear in rocks, as well:
o The first fossils of terrestrial fungi – Tortotubus
• Jawless ostracoderms were still the most common swimmers in the sea, but they developed
sorts of spines and horns, likely to protect themselves from carnivorous sea scorpions –
Eurypterids
• Early end of the Sulirian Period (419 million years ago), a new type of fish learned to bite back
o Entelognathus, jawed fish, appeared in the sea. Equipped with biting power that allow
them to tackle prey that jawless fish couldn’t handle.
• Sulirian-Devonian Extinction Event
o Due to drops in sea level that caused many bottom-dwelling species, particularly
cephalopods to die out.

Devonian Period (419.2 – 358.9 million years ago)

Note:

• Devonian Period produced the first complex land ecosystems, while vertebrates take center
stage in the ocean for the first time.
• Fish began to take over the sea
• Earliest sharks make their appearance
• Placoderms, a kind of fish, considered as the king in the Devonian Period
o The largest of these armored, jawed fish filled the niches we associate with whales and
sharks today – including filter feeders like Titanichthys and apex predators like
Dunkleosteus
• Arthropods started to diversify with the first insects (Rhyniognatha Hirsti) and terrestrial
arachnids emerging.
• Trees arose, forming canopy above the arthropods.
o These forest become the first major terrestrial ecosystems on Earth.
 • Relatives of lobe-finned fish had adapted to spend more time in the shallows, pulling themselves
along muddy shorelines.
o 397 million years ago (Early Middle Devonian Period) – descendants of these critters
finally hauled themselves on land for the first time.
▪ No skeletons of these ancient pioneers were discovered but footprints in Poland
show evidence of these very fist tetrapod, animals with four limbs
o 365 million years ago (Late Devonian Period) – tetrapods made their way across the
entire globe, from Acanthostega in Grenland to Tulerpeton in Russia.
• Devonian Extinction Event – (375 – 358 million years ago)
o Came at least in two phases
▪ Late Devonian Extinction
• Due to decrease of oxygen levels in the sea, many trilobites and all of
the armored placoderms had vanished
• Other animals in land, at least some of the tetrapods survived.

Carboniferous Period (358 – 298.9 million years ago)

• Oxygen in the atmosphere ramped up along with a humid, warm climate allowed dense forests
and swamps to spread across the continents
• Oxygen also caused the arthropods to grow larger
• There is a major change among the tetrapods
o Previously, all tretapods laid their eggs in water
o Around 340 million years ago, a group of tetrapods called amniotes began laying their
eggs with shells that protected them from drying out – turned out to be crucial
adaptation.
o Around this time, the continents began to merge into single supercontinent – Pangea
▪ This landmass was so big that it was impossible for moisture from the ocean to
reach inland resulting to a severe drop in humidity and temperature that wiped
out much of the Carboniferous forest about 305 million years ago also known as
“Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse”
o Around 290 million years ago, much of the forests were replaced by a giant desert at the
heart of the continent, with extensive glaciers in the southern hemisphere
▪ These arid wastelands would’ve been uninhabitable for early tetrapods, but nor
for the amniotes.
• Amniotes rapidly split into two major groups – the reptiles and the
synapsids.
o Both groups spent the last period of the Paleozoic, the Permian,
spreading across Pangea.

Permian Period (298.9 – 251.902 million years ago)

• Synapsids were actually stem-mammals and they were survivors, producing the first large
terrestrial herbivores – Dimetrodon
• The climate got hotter and drier as the Permian Period continue
o Causing stem-mammals and reptiles alike forced to adapt to even harsher conditions
▪ On the reptile side, cattle-sized herbivores like Pareiasaurs
 ▪ Stem-mammals grew even stronger, with the saber-toothed Gorgonopsids
hunting hippo like omnivores with weird head ornaments – Estemmenosuchus

• Permian-Triassic Extinction Event

• 252 million years ago, Permian safari came to an end.
o Probably due to combination of volcanic activity and climate change
• 96% of marine species, including many sharks, fish and all trilobites, were wiped out
• 70% of terrestrial species, including stem-mammals and reptiles loss in the event

SUMMARY

• Paleozoic era began with an explosion of life but ended in near apocalypse.
• Life started out in this era as simple, small marine organisms, by its end, life had conquered the
oceans, taken the very first steps onto land and spread most inhospitable corners of our planet.