The Paleozoic Era: Diversification of Plant and Animal Life

Introduction:

The Paleozoic Era is probably less familiar and perhaps
less dramatic than the age of the dinosaurs that would
dominate the Mesozoic Era that followed. However, the
Paleozoic Era contained one of the most intense increases
in biodiversity in Earth’s history, the Cambrian explosion
and the subsequent Ordovician radiation. It also contained
the largest extinction event the world has ever
known, the Permian extinction, which wiped out more
than 90 percent of marine species and roughly 70 percent
of species on land. It was also a time of great geological
changes as landmasses migrated and collided, eventually
creating the supercontinent called Pangea. Sea levels rose,
drowning whole continents, fell, and rose again. Some of
Earth’s oldest mountain ranges, such as the Appalachians
and the Urals, were formed during the Paleozoic. Life
moved from the oceans to dry land and insects took wing
for the first time. Many evolutionary advances took place,
which set the stage for life as we know it today. Some of
these advances include the development of plants with
seeds, shelled eggs, and organisms capable of breathing
air. So in geologic history the Paleozoic Era was pretty
dramatic after all. In the pages that follow, all of these
developments, as well as the clues that scientists have used
to decipher the history of Earth’s changes, will be explored.
Spanning nearly 300 million years of history, from 542
to 251 million years ago, the Paleozoic Era covers more
than half of the Phanerozoic Eon, also known as the Age
of Life—the geologic time in which humans still live.
Scientists divide the Paleozoic into a number of smaller
periods, beginning with the Cambrian, approximately 542
million to 488 million years ago, followed by the
Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and
Permian periods. Most of these names are derived from
the locations in which rocks and fossils from that time

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