Paleozoic

The Paleozoic spanned from roughly 542 to 251 million years ago. During the late Paleozoic, great forests of primitive plants thrived on land forming the great coal beds of Europe and eastern North America. By the end of the era, the first large, sophisticated reptiles and the first modern plants (conifers) had developed. The Paleozoic Era ended with the largest mass extinction in Earth's history, the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event.

Connected Sites

Site Rationale Link
Anticosti "sediments of upper Silurian to lower Ordovician age that cover an interval from 447 to 437 million years" (AB ev)
Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks
Chengjiang Fossil Site Maotianshan Shales, dated to between 525 and 520 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion (wiki)
Cliff of Bandiagara Rocks are predominantly upper sandstone of the Cambrian and Ordovician periods
Golden Mountains of Altai Geologists believe that the mountains were formed in the Caledonian period, but had a secondary rise in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic era. (Wiki)
Gondwana Rainforests Major stages represented include the 'Age of the Pteridophytes' from the Carboniferous Period with some of the oldest elements of the world's ferns represented, and the 'Age of Conifers' in the Jurassic Period (AB ev)
Gros Morne National Park "Palaeozoic serpentinized ultra-basic rocks, gabbros, volcanic and Lower Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks" (AB ev)
Gulf of Porto ... to have undergone two distinct cycles of volcanic activity in the Permian. Since then cycles of erosion and rejuvenation have been at work and there are high cliffs of red porphyry, rhyoliths and basaltic pillars, considerably eroded by wave action. (AB ev)
Joggins Fossil Cliffs dating to the Pennsylvanian "Coal Age" during the Late 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 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 million years ago (wiki)
Lena Pillars The pillars are 150-300m (490-985ft) high, and were formed in some of the Cambrian Period sea-basins. (Wiki)
Miguasha National Park The fossils date back to the Devonian, "a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, 419.2 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, 358.9 Mya" (wiki)
Mount Taishan Geologically, it is the oldest and most important example of the paleo-metamorphic system representative of the Cambrian Period in eastern China. (AB ev)
Phong Nha - Ke Bang The Phong Nha-Ke Bang karst has evolved since the Palaeozoic (some 400 million years ago) and so is the oldest major karst area in Asia. (AB ev)
Purnululu National Park The sandstone formation of the Bungle Bungle ranges is estimated to be 350 million years old, give or take a few millions. Like the reefs at the Geikie and Windjana gorges the range was formed during the Devonian period.
Tassili n'Ajjer grès fluviatiles du Paléozoïque (env. 450 millions d'années) en cours d'ensablement par les dunes du grand erg oriental et granite érodé en 'boules' au premier plan (wiki)
Uluru The layers of sand were nearly horizontal when deposited, but were tilted to their near vertical position during a later episode of mountain building, possibly the Alice Springs Orogeny of Palaeozoic age (400-300 Ma)
Wulingyuan The stratums that form the sandstone peak forest landforms are mainly composed of the Yuntaiguan formation and Huangjiadun formation originating from the middle and late Devonian period of the Paleozoic era and have the characteristics of littoral clastic rocks

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