Introduction

During the Phanerozoic abundant animal and plant life existed. It covers 541 million years
to the present and began with the Cambric Period and ends until Quaternary. The time span
of the Phanerozoic starts with the sudden appearance of fossilized evidence of a number of
animal phyla; the evolution of those phyla into diverse forms; the emergence and
development of complex plants; the evolution of fish; the emergence of insects and
tetrapods; and the development of modern fauna. Plant life on land appeared in the early
Phanerozoic eon. During this time span, tectonic forces caused the continents to move and
eventually collect into a single landmass known as Pangaea (the most recent
supercontinent), which then separated into the current continental landmasses.

DEVONIAN https://www.britannica.com/science/Devonian-Period/Southern-Hemisphere

Devonian Period, is an interval of the Paleozoic Era that follows the Silurian Period and precedes
the Carboniferous Period, spanning between about 419.2 million and 358.9 million years ago. The
Devonian Period is sometimes called the “Age of Fishes” because of the diverse, abundant, and, in
some cases, bizarre types of these creatures that swam Devonian seas. Forests and the coiled
shell-bearing marine organisms known as ammonites first appeared early in the Devonian. Late in
the period the first four-legged amphibians appeared, indicating the colonization of land by
vertebrates.

A highly varied invertebrate fauna that originated in the preceding Silurian Period continued in the
Devonian, and most ecological niches of shallow and deep marine water were exploited. The
remarkable proliferation of primitive fishes, which has given the period the name the “Age of
Fishes,” occurred in both fresh and marine waters. Derivation of carnivorous fishes from mud-
eating forms occurred early in the period, and tetrapods (four-legged land animals) were derived
from fishes near the middle of the period. Also remarkable is the rise to dominance of vascular
plants. Though groves of trees must have arisen earlier to provide the widespread plant debris
noted in Devonian deposits, the first known evidence of in-place forests dates from the Middle
Devonian.

During most of the Devonian Period, North America, Greenland, and Europe were united into a
single Northern Hemisphere landmass, a minor supercontinent called Laurussia or Euramerica. This
union of the paleocontinents of Laurentia and Baltica occurred near the beginning of the Devonian
Period. Parts of this continent were also often covered by seawater.

An ocean covered approximately 85 percent of the Devonian globe. There is limited evidence of ice
caps, and the climate is thought to have been warm and equitable. The oceans experienced
episodes of reduced dissolved oxygen levels, which likely caused the extinction of many species,
especially marine animals. These extinctions were followed by periods of species diversification, as
the descendants of surviving organisms filled in abandoned habitats.

Talking about its environment warm and equable climates were common, as shown by the wide
distribution of evaporite basins in the Northern Hemisphere, by coal deposits in Arctic Canada and
Spitsbergen, and by widespread desert conditions and carbonate reefs. Devonian salt deposits
indicative of high evaporation rates, and thus of high temperatures, range from western Canada to
Ukraine and Siberia and are found locally in Australia. Evidence of cooler average temperatures is
provided by annual tree rings in Archaeopteris trunks from New York state that record seasonal
growth patterns characteristic of higher latitudes.

Studies of growth lines on Devonian corals indicate that the Devonian year was longer, about 400
days. The lunar cycle, about 301/2 days, was one day longer than it is now.

Though most environments present today were represented during the Devonian, evidence of
glacial deposits is questionable. It is clear that if polar ice caps did exist, they were very much
smaller than they are today. It is thus concluded that Earth was warmer during Devonian time than
at present.

A highly varied invertebrate fauna that originated in the preceding Silurian Period continued in the
Devonian, and most ecological niches of shallow and deep marine water were exploited. The
remarkable proliferation of primitive fishes, which has given the period the name the “Age of
Fishes,” occurred in both fresh and marine waters. Derivation of carnivorous fishes from mud-
eating forms occurred early in the period, and tetrapods (four-legged land animals) were derived
from fishes near the middle of the period. Also remarkable is the rise to dominance of vascular
plants. Though groves of trees must have arisen earlier to provide the widespread plant debris
noted in Devonian deposits, the first known evidence of in-place forests dates from the Middle
Devonian.

There was a remarkable initiation of diverse types of vascular plants during the Devonian, and a
varied flora was established early in the period. Evidence of algae is common; bryophytes first
appear, and charophytes are locally common. Freshwater algae and fungi are known in the Rhynie
Chert of Scotland. The first known forests are of late Middle Devonian age.

The rich record of land plants may be related to the fact that the Old Red Sandstone represents the
first widespread record of continental conditions. However, the primitive nature of the stocks seen
and the absence of a long earlier record, even of detrital fragments of vascular plants, suggest that
the colonization and exploitation of land environments were real Devonian events. Fortuitous
finds, such as the silicified flora of the Rhynie Chert and the pyritized tissue from the Upper
Devonian of New York, have enabled the intimate anatomy of many of these plants to be
elucidated in detail equivalent to that of modern forms.

There is also evidence that extinctions may be associated with rapid global warming or cooling.
Particularly in the Late Devonian, extinction events may relate to periods of abrupt cooling
associated with the development of glaciers and the substantial lowering of sea level. It has been
argued that patterns of faunal change at the Kellwasser Event are consistent with global cooling.
At present it is not possible to connect Devonian extinctions definitively with any single cause, and,
indeed, it is probable that extinctions may record a combination of several stresses.

CARBONIFEROUS https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/carboniferous/carboniferous.php#:~:text=The
%20Carboniferous%20Period%20lasted%20from,midwestern%20and%20eastern%20North
%20America.

The Carboniferous Period lasted from about 359.2 to 299 million years ago* during the late
Paleozoic Era. The term "Carboniferous" comes from England, in reference to the rich deposits of
coal that occur there. These deposits of coal occur throughout northern Europe, Asia, and
midwestern and eastern North America. This division was established to distinguish the coal-
bearing layers of the Pennsylvanian from the mostly limestone Mississippian, and is a result of
differing stratigraphy on the different continents.

Biologically, we see one of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous: the
amniote egg, which allowed for the further exploitation of the land by certain tetrapods. It gave
the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles the ability to lay their eggs on land without fear of
desiccation. Geologically, the Late Carboniferous collision of Laurasia into Gondwana produced the
Appalachian Mountain belt of eastern North America and the Hercynian Mountains in the United
Kingdom. A further collision of Siberia and eastern Europe created the Ural Mountains of Russia.
And climatically, there was a trend towards mild temperatures during the Carboniferous, as
evidenced by the decrease in lycopods and large insects, and an increase in the number of tree
ferns.

The North American Pennsylvanian environment was alternately terrestrial and marine, with the
transgression and regression of the seas caused by glaciation. These environmental conditions,
with the vast amount of plant material provided by the extensive coal forests, allowed for the
formation of coal. Plant material did not decay when the seas covered them, and pressure and
heat eventually built up over millions of years to transform the plant material to coal.

The beginning of the Carboniferous generally had a more uniform, tropical, and humid climate
than exists today. Seasons if any were indistinct. These observations are based on comparisons
between fossil and modern-day plant morphology. The Carboniferous plants resemble those that
live in tropical and mildly temperate areas today. Many of them lack growth rings, which suggests a
uniform climate. This uniformity in climate may have been the result of the large expanse of ocean
that covered the entire surface of the globe, except for a localized section where Pangea, the
massive supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Triassic, was coming
together.

Shallow, warm, marine waters often flooded the continents. Attached filter feeders such as
bryozoans, particularly fenestellids, were abundant in this environment, and the sea floor was
dominated by brachiopods. Trilobites were increasingly scarce while foraminifers were abundant.
The heavily armored fish from the Devonian became extinct, being replaced with more modern-
looking fish fauna.
PERMICO https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/permian/permian.php

The Permian period lasted from 299 to 251 million years ago* and was the last period of the
Paleozoic Era. The distinction between the Paleozoic and the Mesozoic is made at the end of the
Permian in recognition of the largest mass extinction recorded in the history of life on Earth. It
affected many groups of organisms in many different environments, but it affected marine
communities the most by far, causing the extinction of most of the marine invertebrates of the
time. Some groups survived the Permian mass extinction in greatly diminished numbers, but they
never again reached the ecological dominance they once had, clearing the way for another group
of sea life. On land, a relatively smaller extinction of diapsids and synapsids cleared the way for
other forms to dominate, and led to what has been called the "Age of Dinosaurs." Also, the great
forests of fern-like plants shifted to gymnosperms, plants with their offspring enclosed within
seeds. Modern conifers, the most familiar gymnosperms of today, first appear in the fossil record
of the Permian. The Permian was a time of great changes and life on Earth was never the same
again.

The global geography of the Permian included massive areas of land and water. By the beginning of
the Permian, the motion of the Earth's crustal plates had brought much of the total land together,
fused in a supercontinent known as Pangea. Many of the continents of today in somewhat intact
form met in Pangea (only Asia was broken up at the time), which stretched from the northern to
the southern pole. Most of the rest of the surface area of the Earth was occupied by a
corresponding single ocean, known as Panthalassa, with a smaller sea to the east of Pangea known
as Tethys.

Models indicate that the interior regions of this vast continent were probably dry, with great
seasonal fluctuations due to the lack of a moderating effect provided by nearby bodies of water.
Only portions of this interior region received rainfall throughout the year. There are indications
that the climate of the Earth shifted during the Permian, with decreasing glaciation as the interiors
of continents became drier.

Permian shales, sandstones, siltstones, limestones, sands, marls, and dolostones were deposited as
a result of sea-level fluctuations. These fluctuation cycles can be seen in the rock layers. Relatively
few sites lend themselves to direct radioactive dating, so the age of intermediate strata is often
estimated.

Permian fossils that have been used as index fossils include brachiopods, ammonoids, fusilinids,
conodonts, and other marine invertebrates, and some genera occur within such specific time
frames that strata are named for them and permit stratigraphic identification through the presence
or absence of specified fossils.