Sumber : http://palaeos.com/phanerozoic/phanerozoic.

htm
Introduction
The Phanerozoic represents a relatively brief period of half a billion years (brief that is
relative to the age of the Earth and the universe) that constitutes the age of multicellular
animal life on Earth. During this time micro- and multicellular organisms left a detailed
fossil record, and built up complex and diverse ecosystems, and life has evolved through
countless transformations and millions upon millions of species.
The term Phanerozoic - "visible" or "revealed life", or "evident life" - is generally applied to
the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras; the relatively short period during which the Earth
has been inhabited by multicellular organisms that leave fossil traces in the rocks. This is in
contrast to the "Precambrian", which lasted for a very much longer time, but was
characterized only by micro-organisms that generally do not leave fossils. With the
discovery of a complex late Precambrian (Vendian/Ediacaran) biotas the term Phanerozoic
has lost much of its meaning, but can still be used perhaps to define the period of the
development and evolution of higher groups of organisms like arthropods, molluscs,
vertebrates etc that are still alive and predominant today. For although primitive algae existed
throughout much of the Precambrian, this was not the case with multicellular animals
(Metazoa), which only appeared during the very earliest Cambrian. This eon can also be
considered (as suggested by Dr James Lovelock in his book Ages of Gaia) as the modern
period in the life of Gaia (following the Archean and the Proterozoic), the maturity or third
age of Gaia so to speak, and is characterized as much, if not more, by the presence of
abundant free oxygen as by the existence of multicellular organisms or fossil-bearing rock
strata.
The following table shows the three eras and eleven geological periods that comprise the
Phanerozoic. Like all geological tables this diagram has to be read from the bottom up; the
lowest period in the table, the Cambrian, being the earliest.

eon

era

period

when
My
ICS

began duration
ago My
ICS

Neogene

23.0

23.0

Paleogene

65.5

42.5

Cretaceous

146

80.5

Jurassic

200

54

Triassic

251

51

Permian

299

48

Carboniferous

359

60

Devonian

416

57

Cenozoic

Mesozoic
Phanerozoic

Paleozoic

Silurian

444

28

Ordovician

488

44

Cambrian

542

54

The Age of Ancient Life

Of the three main eras that make up the Phanerozoic,
the Paleozoic is the longest and most diverse,
spanning the period from very early multicellular life
that only inhabited the oceans to quite advanced tetrapods* and reptiles and extensive forests
on land.
Early
Paleozoic:
Age
of
Invertebrates
Coelomate radiation (Cambrian explosion) - origin of major groups of organisms;
nervous system, behavior patterns and simple consciousness (the nascent Noosphere);
continents
drift
apart.

and

under

Middle
Paleozoic:
Age
of
Fish
Tropical conditions. Extinction of many "experimental" animal groups;
diversification of surviving invertebrate groups, rise of vertebrates
(fish). Life moves on land (rhyniophytes, lycophytes, uniramous arthropods,
proto-amphibians).

Late
Paleozoic:
Age
of
Tetrapods*
and
Reptiles
Ice age. Coal forests of giant lycopsids, calamites, pteridophytes and ferns
cover the tropical landmasses. Southern landmass of Gondwanaland buried
glaciers;
continents
drift
together.
Reptiles
conquer
the
land.

More on the Paleozoic

The Age of Middle Life

The Mesozoic has been called the "age of reptiles",
but "age of dinosaurs" would be more
appropriate. There is still controversy over whether
dinosaurs really were stupid sluggish ectotherms ("reptiles") or active high-metabolism
(endotherm) creatures more like birds. Even if we define them as "reptiles" the age of
reptiles as such begins in the Permian period of the Paleozoic era anyway.
Tropical (Greenhouse) Conditions. Pangaea continues during the early
Triassic; then landmasses begin to drift apart. Shallow oceans cover much
of the continents, breaking the land into large islands. Mammals remain

small, possibly nocturnal. Most modern groups of organisms appear. Vertebrate animals
(mammals, birds, theropod dinosaurs) develop larger brains then their earlier reptilian
ancestors.
More on the Mesozoic
The Age of Recent Life
Last of all, the Cenozoic - also spelt "Cainozoic" - is
the age of mammals. During this period, following
the extinction of the dinosaurs, mammals evolved from small shrew-like types into all the
diverse types around today, as well as many different prehistoric forms.
The modern world. Land masses take their present shape. "Intelligence race"
as herbivores develop larger brains and carnivores do likewise. The climate,
originally tropical, becomes increasingly more seasonal as ice age conditions
develop, possibly triggered by the rise of the Himalayan mountain uplift.

The Paleozoic (also spelt "Palaeozoic") era lasted from about 540 to 250 million years ago,
and is divided into six periods The 320-odd million years of the Paleozoic era saw many
important events, including the development of most invertebrate groups, life's conquest of
land, the evolution of fish, reptiles, insects, and vascular plants, the formation of the
supercontinent of Pangea, and no less than two distinct ice ages. The earth rotated faster than
it does today so days were shorter, and the nearer moon meant stronger tides.
MAK
Paleozoic Geography

Since the continental cratons all move with respect to each other, we need to pick an EastWest point of reference to keep things straight. Paleozoic paleocartographers have somehow
fallen into the habit of placing this reference longitude slightly east of Greenland. For most
of the Paleozoic, Greenland remained close to the equator and, after Baltica sutured to
Laurentia (North America plus Greenland) during the Silurian, this longitude came to
correspond quite closely to the longitude of the future Greenwich, England, which defines the
present conventional 0 longitude line. We will adopt this convention, although it is
important to understand that it's just a convention. We have no absolute measures of EastWest continental drift, and must be content with noting movements relative to some arbitrary
geographical point.
The early Paleozoic saw many of the continents clustered around the equator, with Gondwana
(representing the bulk of old Rodinia) slowly drifting south across the South poles, and
Siberia, Laurentia (North America plus Greenland) and Baltica converging in the
tropics. There was a large ocean between Laurentia and Eastern Gondwanaland.
It seems that Gondwanaland underwent a large clockwise rotation around an axis close to
Australia during the Early Paleozoic. Laurentia underwent a large eastward movement, as
well as a northward drift.

Baltica joined with Laurentia during the Silurian, drifting from a moderate southern
hemisphere position in Cambro-Ordovician time to an equatorial position in SilurianDevonian time. The combined continent is sometimes referred to as Euramerica, Laurasia, or
Laurussia. Siberia, and possibly the Kazakhstan terranes, drifted across the equator to the
northeast. All the East and Southeast Asian terranes, as well as the microcontinents which
later formed Mexico, the east coast of North America, and southern Europe, were still part of
the north coast (India-Australia margin) of Gondwana during the Early Palaeozoic.
During the middle and late Paleozoic (Devonian to Permian), about a third of the Gondwanan
mass was torn into small pieces and moved rapidly to equatorial regions. Most of these
blocks were assembled by a series of plate collisions into the supercontinent of Euramerica
by the Devonian, which by addition of further landmasses became Laurasia by the late
Carboniferous. Most of western Gondwana (South America and Africa), then rotated
clockwise and moved northward to collide with Laurasia. By Permian time, Siberia and the
Kazakhstan terranes were sutured to Euramerica (Laurussia) and the Chinese blocks started
accreting to them. The result was the supercontinent Pangaea. MAK, revised ATW050810.
Paleozoic Stratigraphy

eon

era

period

when began duration

myrs
ago myrs
ICS
ICS

Mesozoic

Triassic

251

51

Permian

299

48

Carboniferous

359

60

Devonian

416

57

Silurian

444

28

Ordovician

488

44

Cambrian

542

54

Ediacaran ("Vendian")

630

88

Phanerozoic
Paleozoic

Proterozoic

Neoproterozoic

MAK
Paleozoic Climate
The Cambrian
climate was
probably
moderate
at
first,
becoming warmer over the course
of the period, as the second-greatest
sustained sea level rise in the
Phanerozoic
got
under

way. However, as if to offset this trend, Gondwana moved south with considerable speed, so
that, in Ordovician time, Most of West Gondwana (Africa and South America) lay directly
over the South Pole. The Early Paleozoic climate was also strongly zonal, with the result that
the "climate", in an abstract sense became warmer, but the living space of most organisms of
the time -- the continental shelf marine environment -- became steadily colder. However,
Baltica (Northern Europe and Russia) and Laurentia (eastern North America and Greenland)
remained in the tropical zone, while China and Australia lay in waters which were at least
temperate. The Early Paleozoic ended, rather abruptly, with the short, but apparently severe,
Late Ordovician Ice Age. This cold spell caused the second-greatest mass extinction of
Phanerozoic time.
The Middle Paleozoic was a time of considerable stability. Sea levels had dropped
coincident with the Ice Age, but slowly recovered over the course of the Silurian and
Devonian. The slow merger of Baltica and Laurentia, and the northward movement of bits
and pieces of Gondwana created numerous new regions of relatively warm, shallow sea
floor. As plants took hold on the continental margins, oxygen levels increased and carbon
dioxide dropped, although much less dramatically. The north-south temperature gradient also
seems to have moderated, or metazoan life simply became hardier, or both. At any event, the
far southern continental margins of Antarctica and West Gondwana became increasingly less
barren. The Devonian ended with a series of turnover pulses which killed off much of
Middle Paleozoic vertebrate life, without noticeably reducing species diversity overall.
The Late Paleozoic was a time which has left us a good many unanswered questions. The
Mississippian Epoch began with a spike in atmospheric oxygen, while carbon dioxide
plummeted to unheard-of lows. This destabilized the climate and led to one, and perhaps
two, ice ages during the Carboniferous. These were far more severe than the brief Late
Ordovician Ice; but, this time, the effects on world biota were inconsequential. By the
Cisuralian, both oxygen and carbon dioxide had recovered to more normal levels. On the
other hand, the assembly of Pangea created huge arid inland areas subject to temperature
extremes. The Lopingian is associated with falling sea levels, increased carbon dioxide and
general climatic deterioration, culminating in the devastation of the end-Permian extinction.
Image: Devonian sea floor scene from the OTS Heavy Oil Science Center.
ATW041218. Text public domain. No rights reserved.
Paleozoic Sites
As one might expect from such a vast interval of time, there are a great many Paleozoic sites
to choose from. Rather than attempt the impossible task of describing the scars left by 300
My of geological time, we thought we would briefly summarize the ten Paleozoic sites
which, in our judgment, had left the greatest mark on paleontology. That, at least, is what we
thought. As it turned out, after going through the agonizing job of paring down the list, we
found that we could not get much below twelve or fifteen sites. Rather than make some kind
of difficult, rational choice, we have simply hacked off the Permian and about half the
Carboniferous, as well as randomly discarding some of the many Devonian sites. So you will
not see anything from Isheevo or the Karoo, the red beds of Texas, Mazon Creek, Bear Gulch
or even Canowindra. Some of these sites are covered in detail elsewhere on this site (which
is, of course, one of the ten indispensible sites of Holocene time). Accordingly, without
wasting a single electron or pixel more on vain regrets:

1) Chengjiang: Terreneuvian
of South China. This site is
discussed at Chenjiang. The
English
spellings
are
somewhat
variable,
"Chenjiang" being another
popular variant. The correct
spelling seems to be . It
might be better to referred to as
the Maotianshan Shale. This is
less accurate (it is more
properly
the
Qiongzhusi
Formation), but seems least
likely to be misspelled by
ignorant foreigners, such as
ourselves. The Chengjiang fossils are dated at 525-520 Mya, or perhaps a bit younger,
corresponding most nearly to the Botomian Age in our system [1]. Outcrops of the
Qiongzhusi occur in scattered locations south of Kunming in eastern Yunnan Province,
Chengjiang County, near the towns of Chengjiang and Ercai. Additional sites have now been
opened further south. Of all the sites mentioned here, Chengjiang is geologically the oldest
and historically the youngest. The fossil potential of the region was discovered by Dr. Hou
Xianguang in 1984. Many of the fossils have been recovered -- and many lost forever -- in
connection with phosphate mines in the area. The incredible soft-tissue preservation of the
fossils here seems to have resulted from rapid burial, complete sediment anoxia, and
replacement of organic remains with pyrite or phosphates -- nothing magical, except the
absolutely unreasonable number of such sites, of varying ages, in Yunnan Province.
The faunal list from Chengjiang is a virtually complete census of the major metazoan taxa of
the time, and includes our personal favorite of all early chordates, Haikouella. There seems
to be little selectivity. There are now Chengjinag fossil images all over the web. However,
many of the Chengjiang organisms remain undescribed, simply for lack of competent
describers, and new specimens are being discovered at an extraordinary rate.
2)
The Burgess Shale:
Middle
Cambrian
of
Canada. The Burgess Shale is
slightly
younger
than
Chengjiang. The Shale is
located near the town of Field,
in
southeastern
British
Columbia,
high
in
the
Canadian Rockies. The closest
major town is Banff, about 90 km to the east. The site was discovered by Charles Walcott of
the Smithsonian Institution in 1909, and the Walcott Quarry is named after him. The deposits
are deepwater, benthic sediments, but the fauna probably represent a reef community swept
off the reef and buried in an anoxic bottom by a mudslide. The Burgess is actually far less
spectacular than Chengjiang, but it attained great fame (ironically, just at the time that
Chengjiang was starting to produce large quantities of fossils) due in part to Jay Gould's
book, Wonderful Life.

The Burgess Shale's influence on paleontology has been, in part, due to the fact that Gould
chose this book to set out some
of his most interesting and
controversial
ideas
about
evolution, and in a manner
readable
by
almost
everyone. Gould argued that
the end results of evolution
were
essentially
random
because the process was
chaotic [2]. Thus even the
tiniest change in Proterozoic
conditions might have resulted
in an entirely different modern
fauna. His proof was the
diversity of phyla in the Shale,
hinting at an enormous initial
diversity in the Cambrian Explosion which was quickly pruned away, largely by
happenstance. As it has turned out, Gould was certainly wrong about the Burgess
Shale. Chengjiang -- and closer examination of the Burgess fauna -- have shown that Walcott
was more correct than Gould. The great majority of Burgess animals can now be assigned
with confidence to well-known phyla. However, his ideas about evolution may well be
correct, if the pruning process actually occurred in the lower Early Cambrian or even before
metazoans became morphologically recognizable.
The supercontinent Pangea divides into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south. The
climate is hot and tropical worldwide. On land, the dinosaurs reign supreme. In the oceans are
various kinds of marine reptiles, as well as ammonite and belemnite molluscs and many other
invertebrate groups. Plants include ferns and gymnosperms. Mammals are small and
insignificant, but probably numerically common.
The Mesozoic Era lasted more than 180 million years. During this time, many modern
forms of plants, invertebrates, and fishes evolved. On land, dinosaurs were the dominant
animals, while the oceans were populated by large marine reptiles, and Pterosaurs ruled the
air. For most of this period, the climate worldwide was warm and tropical, and shallow seas
covered low-lying landmasses. At the beginning of the Mesozoic, all of the world's
continents were joined into the supercontinent of Pangea, which rifted into Laurasia in the
north and Gondwanaland in the south. By the end of the era most of continents had separated
into their present form.
The Mesozoic Era is divided into three periods, each lasting many millions of years: the
Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. The Triassic saw the emergence of many modern
invertebrate groups, and on land the archosaur reptiles replaced the therapsids. In the oceans
Ichthyosaurs such as Shonisaurus became as large as whales. The Jurassic was the height of
the dinosaur era, with giants such as Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, etc, and mammals tiny and
shrew-like. Distinctive plants like ferns, Cycads, Bennettitales, and Cheirolepidiaceae
conifers characterized the landscape. During the Cretaceous period, the first flowering
plants appeared, birds and fish diversified, and new types of dinosaurs appeared. The climate
cooled and unique dinosaurs evolved on different continents.

The Mesozoic era came to an end with the great terminal extinction event known as the K-T
(Cretaceous-Tertiary) event.
Image: illustration Doug Henderson, reproduced with permission
The Mesozoic Era: Stratigraphy

Period

Epoch

Upper/late
K2

Cretaceous
K

Lower/early
K1

Age

Range
(Mya)

Maastrichtian k6

70.6
65.5

Campanian k5

83.5
70.6

Santonian k4

85.8
83.5

Coniacian k3

89.3
85.8

Turonian k2

93.5
89.3

Cenomanian k1

99.6
93.5

Albian b6

112.0
99.6

Aptian b5

125.0
112.0

Barremian b4

130.0
125.0

Hauterivian b3

136.4
130.0

Valanginian b2

140.2
136.4

Berriasian b1

145.5
140.2

Tithonian j7

150.8
145.5

155.7
150.8

Oxfordian j5

161.2
155.7

Callovian j4

164.7
161.2

Upper/late J3 Kimmeridgian j6
Jurassic J

Middle J2

Duration
(My)
5.1
12.9
2.3
3.5
4.2
6.1
12.4
13.0
5.0
6.4
3.8
5.3
5.3
4.9
5.5
3.5

Lower/early
J1

Bathonian j3

167.7
164.7

Bajocian j2

171.6
167.7

Aalenian j1

175.6
171.6

Toarcian l4

183.0
175.6

Pliensbachian l3

189.6
183.0

Sinemurian l2

196.5
189.6

Hettangian l1

199.6
196.5

Rhaetian t7

203.6
199.6

216.5
203.6

Carnian t5

228.0
216.5

Ladinian t4

237.0
228.0

Anisian t3

245.0
237.0

Olenekian t2

249.7
245.0

Induan t1

251.0
249.7

Upper/late T3 Norian t6

Triassic T
Middle T2

Lower/early
T1

Mesozoic Climate
Some of the main outlines of
Mesozoic climate are matters of
general agreement, but almost
no one is very satisfied with the
explanations for what has been
observed. Here's the usual
story:
The Triassic, particularly the
first half of the Triassic, was
dry and highly seasonal, with
particularly
large
annual
temperature variations in the

3.0
3.9
4.0
7.4
6.6
6.9
3.1
4.0
12.9
11.5
9.0
8.0
4.7
1.3

vast continental interior of Pangea, the world-spanning continent of the Triassic. Low sea
levels probably exaggerated these temperature extremes. Water acts as a heat sink -- it takes
much more heat to warm a cup of water than it does to warm a cup of rock. Water also
circulates, so that heat doesn't build up in one place. The net result is that water tends to
stabilize temperatures. Land areas near the ocean are warmed or cooled by winds which pass
over the ocean and by rains from evaporated ocean waters. It is generally agreed (a) that the
low sea levels of the Triassic contributed to temperature extremes in the interior of Pangea
and (b) that the interior of Pangea probably included huge areas of desert.
During the Jurassic, sea
levels began to rise,
probably due to an
increase in sea-floor
spreading. This seems
paradoxical, but the
mechanism
is
explained
in
the
image. This
caused
flooding of large areas
of the continents. As a
result, the deserts began
to
retreat,
and
continental
temperatures
stabilized. Pangea also
began to break up into
smaller units, which
brought more land area
in contact with the
ocean. The presence of
nearby oceans also
increased humidity, so
that
climates
worldwide became wetter as well as warmer.
During the first half of the Cretaceous, this process continued. In addition two climate trends
which began in the Jurassic became quite pronounced in the Cretaceous. The mechanism for
these events is not fully understood. First, the temperature gradient from North to South
became almost flat -- much more so than would be predicted from ocean circulation
models. In other words, average temperatures were about the same everywhere on Earth,
from the poles to the equator. Second, average temperatures were much higher than today,
probably by about 10C. Higher CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels certainly played a part, but the
paleoclimate data do not match theoretical predictions.
The later Cretaceous story is more complex, and more controversial. Many researchers, but
not a real consensus, believe that sea temperatures near the equator may have become a bit
too warm by the Aptian-Albian, perhaps actually incompatible with ocean life. In addition,
some data suggest that land areas near the equator were not jungle- or forest-covered, that
plant diversity was low, and that these regions were arid despite being close to the sea. Deep
ocean circulation may also have broken down. That is, water continued to circulate

horizontally, but not vertically. The deep oceans weren't getting oxygen, and "black shales"
appeared in the Aptian-Albian and High Cretaceous. These are large volumes of organic
matter in the oceans which never completely decomposed because of lack of deep ocean
oxygen. Still, the north-south temperature gradient remained very flat.
Things cooled off a little during the
End-Cretaceous, but it's unclear how
much or how regularly.
The
climate at the very end of the
Mesozoic
is
particularly
controversial.
Unfortunately, the data only match
this story to a limited degree, and
there
are
internal
inconsistencies. Here are a few of
the problem areas.
1) If temperature extremes in the Triassic were as great as general circulation models predict,
one would expect rather hefty ice-build-up in at least some polar regions. Glaciers leave a
rather distinct geological signature, and we simply don't have any evidence of Triassic
glaciers or polar caps.
2) Conversely, there is evidence of the kind of rapid sea level changes associated with polar
ice in the Mid-Cretaceous, which is rather hard to accept. Miller et al. (2003).
3) CO2 levels are usually invoked to explain Cretaceous warmth and the flat Cretaceous
temperature gradient. This makes sense, since the very active mid-ocean spreading ridges
might well have been associated with out-gassing of CO2 from deep within the
Earth. Unfortunately, neither the geology of the period nor the stable carbon isotope records
really support the idea as well as they might.
4) Even the most sophisticated quantitative models can't reconstruct the flatness of the
Cretaceous temperature gradient. Either our temperature estimates are off, or some important
factor is missing from the models. Since dinosaurs and semi-tropical vegetation are known
from within 10 of the Cretaceous poles, the problem is likely to be with the theory. A recent
study of a mid-latitude continental interior (in eastern Russia) -- far from the ocean in even
Late Cretaceous times, suggest that temperatures were very even and that these regions were
damp and non-seasonal even in the Mid-Cretaceous.
Links: Mesozoic Dinosaurs - Enchanted Learning Software, Lecture 24-, Global Climate
Change Student Guide, Pz-Mzclimate, Global Climate and Phytogeography in the Early
Mesozoic, Pangaean climate during the Early Jurassic- GCM simulations and ..., The Vilui
Basin and the Late Cretaceous Continental Interior ..., Mesozoic LAND ECOSYSTEMS,
Geological Society - Abstracts.
ATW041023. Text and ocean crust image public domain. No rights reserved.
Mesozoic Life

Dragonfly Bivalve

Calcareous Ichthyosaur
Sponge

Ammonite

Belemnite

Araucaria
cean
conifer

Pterosauria

Crinoi
d
Plesiosaur

Dinosaur

Bennetti
tale
Fern

Echinoid

If you're looking at this section, you may be a beginner

without much previous knowledge. Of course, you may
simply have been searching the web for an old Nirvana CD
and you ran across this page because, as it happens, you're
also a moron. In either case, it is unlikely that you have much
background in Mesozoic zoology (or, for that matter, much
taste in music). Accordingly, we'll keep this pretty basic and
concentrate on the familiar tetrapods.
The Mesozoic came after the Paleozoic. The Paleozoic Era
ended with the Permian Period, which ended with a sort of
general meltdown, sometimes called the "PT" or "EndPermian" extinction. We still aren't certain exactly what
happened, but the fact that much of central Siberia turned into
a sort of volcanic bubble bath for a few million years didn't
help. This was, bar none, the worst mass extinction in the last
600 My. Don't get this one confused with the "KT" extinction at the end of the Mesozoic -the one which finished off the dinosaurs 200 My later. That was a sumo match by
comparison. That is, it eliminated some very large and conspicuous folks very quickly, but it
was all very fast and civilized.
The PT extinction dragged on for at least a few hundred thousand years and resulted in the
loss of perhaps 98-99% of all species of animals. The survivors of the End-Permian radiated
into a world that was rather empty, and the new life forms that evolved from those survivors
were sometimes quite different from those whch had come before. For example, of all the
therapsids (mammal ancestors) in the world at the end of the Permian, only a few cynodonts
and dicynodonts were left. Not surprisingly, they multiplied like rabbits and spread out all
over the world. As they did, they encountered environments and ecological challenges quite
different from those in their South African (probably) home base. So, different populations
evolved in different directions.
In addition, the great legion of their dinocephalian cousins had vanished completely, leaving
those large-herbivore and carnivore jobs empty. Some of those slots were filled by newly
modified cynodonts and dicynodonts; but, many of those positions were taken over by
archosaurian reptiles, instead. So, not only were the surviving groups changed in

composition, but the balance between them changed as well. Among the tetrapods, the newly
expanded range of the archosaurs created an opening for the evolution of the archosaurian
dinosaurs and pterosaurs, both of
which appeared just a few million
years
after
the
PT
extinction. These went on to
drive
the
dicynodonts
to
extinction and reduce the
cynodonts
to
a
marginal
population of small, furtive nightdwellers -- the mammals. A
similar, but larger, set of
vacancies in the marine job
market created new opportunities
for other major reptile lines,
which evolved several different
groups of specialized sea-going
forms, including the sauropterygians (plesiosaurs and their kin), ichthyosaurs, and
mosasaurs.
This same story could be told about molluscs and echinoderms and even plants, which
suffered much less than animals from the effects of the PT events. In each case, one or two
of the big groups were completely eliminated, the rest were changed, and the old ecological
balances of the Paleozoic were very thoroughly unbalanced. The entire Triassic, and most of
the Jurassic, was spent getting all that sorted out. At the end of this period -- about the Late
Jurassic and earliest Cretaceous -- there was another burst of evolutionary creativity
associated with rising seas and relatively warm, equable climate throughout the
world. Familiar examples include birds, placental mammals and angiosperm (flowering)
plants. Again, even more fundamental changes were going on in the sea: rudist molluscs, new
types of sharks, planktonic foraminifera, and several new types of algae, to name but a few.
Both temperature and sea level reached maxima in Aptian-Albian time, or perhaps a little
later. By this time, things were getting a bit too warm in the seas, and there was some
climatic deterioration. The Late Cretaceous saw a remarkable evolution of smaller animals of
all kinds, perhaps at the expense of the giants of earlier Mesozoic ages. So, for example, we
find the first examples of modern lizards and snakes, and mammals which were probably
primates.
Of course, all these vermin might have come to nothing if a small asteroid hadn't happened to
land in Mexico, 65.5 Mya. But it did, and the cycle of disaster, evolution, dispersal, and
recovery continued. Speaking of which, if you're still interested in that Nirvana CD, forget
it. Sure, Cobain could have been the TS Elliot of the Twenty-First Century had he, likewise,
taken a different path. But he didn't either, and its just no use pretending otherwise.
ATW050205. Text public domain. No rights reserved.
Mesozoic Reef Systems

It is easy to type "Mesozoic Reef

Systems," just as it is easy to type
the words "The History of the
Asia." In both cases, it's a bit
harder to say anything meaningful
in a few words. We might try a
few verbal pictures instead.
The Mesozoic began with the
universal desolation of the endPermian world.
Most reef
systems were devastated beyond
recovery.
The frothy and
exhuberant dream castles of Late
Permian calcareous sponge were
were now in ruins -- crumbling
blocks of lifeless rock, around
which no fishes swam. Instead, there sprouted, here and there, the squat and flaccid
mushroom shapes of pale stromatolites. These glowed a ghost-like green against the garish,
toxic shades of fungal blooms which gnawed like ghouls opon the last decaying flesh of
Permian life. The seas were weirdly clear. The rich planktonic rains of fusilinid forams,
diatoms, and softer-bodied forms, uncounted and unknown, were gone. In deeper seas, the
drifting galaxies of crystal radiolarian stars were swept away. All ocean life was strangled by
anoxic waters reaching through unheard-of depths; and nothing lived that did not feed on
death.
Almost two million centuries later it closed with a riot of shape and of form, leaving reefs
made of corals and sponges and clams, leaving mountains of algae and snails, leaving
brachiopods by the billion or more, leaving walls built by rudists on carbonate platforms with
foraminiferan floors. For throughout the Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, the oceans continued
to rise. And as long as the waters continued to rise, the corals continued to grow. Like the
rudists and algae and sponges and clams, they grew to the tops of their tropical seas, where
the sun made a tropical glow.
While an interesting exercise, the attempt to deliver scientific information in blank verse
suffers from certain unavoidable inefficiencies. We will therefore return to our regular bland
diet of tasteless literary grits -- with but with an occasional metrical lapse for particular pieces
and bits. ATW040909.

Image: Jurassic corals

from Jurassic Reef Park
Marine Life in General
Mesozoic oceans were populated by a rich and diverse fauna of fish, reptiles, and a variety of
cephalopod mollusks including the ammonites and the belemnites (nautiloids were also
present but less common). Both these molluscan groups were adapted for speed and mobility.
Fish were mostly slow moving heavy scaled ("ganoid") types, which were probably not as
agile (teleosts only become predominant towards the later Cretaceous).
From the Jurassic onwards Plankton increased in diversity, with phytoplankton such as
coccoliths, diatoms and silicoflagellates together with a zooplankton dominated by
foraminifera and radiolarians. Arthropods such as the amphipod, decapod and isopod
crustaceans together with nudibranch mollusks and the annelid and polychaete worms were
also probably part of the plankton. MAK020428
Invertebrates
Annelida
The fossil record of Mesozoic annelids, like the fossil record of all annelids, is poor. We can
only make a few, general remarks.
The end-Permian extinction more or less destroyed the entire Paleozoic benthic fauna. The
Mesozoic benthic communities, developed an entirely new style, possibly (i.e., this is
complete speculation) based on the very few anoxia-tolerant detritivores who would have
flourished in the benthic carnage of the end-Permian. Whatever their origin, Mesozoic and
Cenozoic benthic communities are dominated by infaunal (burrowing) deposit-feeders, rather
than epifaunal suspension feeders. This was surely good for the annelids who are quite handy
with low-oxygen, burrowing ways of making a living. Oligochaetes probably evolved in the
Late Jurassic. However, they were unable to employ the usual annelid skills on land until the
Late Cretaceous, when angiosperms began creating large quantities of humus, permitting the
evolution of the oligochaete earthworms.
Brachiopoda

Brachiopods suffered greatly during the end-Permian extinction. They were able to make a
considerable come-back during the Late Triassic, but ultimately declined and were
ecologically replaced by bivalves. Their fate may have been tied to substrate. The
brachiopods of the Late Triassic resurgence were strongly associated with carbonate shelves,
the classic reef environment of the Late Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic. The rise in sea levels
during the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous drowned these platforms on a global basis. That is,
the residents of the carbonate platforms gradually found themselves too deep in the water
column for sunlight to sustain photosynthesis, and the shelf ecosystems collapsed. This
permitted the bivalves to "mussel" their way in, as they were better adapted to the soft and
unstable sand & mud sea bottoms within the new photic zone. In fact, with the evolution of
the rudists, the bivalves were able to make their own quick and sloppy reefs on even the
softest substrate.
As a consequence, the surviving Mesozoic brachiopods became off-shore specialists,
occupying deeper-water and more cryptic environments in crevices and on submarine cliffs
below the photic zone. Some developed poisonous tissues. The more robust and globose
terebratulides such as Terebratella and probably some species of Tichosina were free on the
substrate. A few of these developed semi-infaunal strategies.
Mesozoic brachiopods, like many other invertebrates, show considerable differentiation
between Tethyan (tropical) and Boreal (subtropical and temperate) types in the Late Triassic
and Jurassic. Also like many other invertebrates, these distinctions broke down in the
Cretaceous, as rising sea levels and flattened climate zonation homogenized most marine
fauna.
Bryozoa
Early Mesozoic bryozoans were largely cheilostomes and cyclostomes. During the Early
Cretaceous, however, the cyclostomes declined while cheilostomes diversified. The reasons
for this replacement are unclear. Both suffered massive extinctions in Maastrichtian time,
possibly coinciding with the more general KT extinctions. The cheilostomes rebounded
during the Cenozoic. The cyclostomes generally did not. McKinney & Taylor (2001).
Cnidaria
Mesozoic cnidarians are mostly known from
their greatest success story, the scleractinian
corals. Several groups of scleractinians
developed tight symbiotic relationships with
photosynthetic zooxanthellae with a resulting
huge boost to their productivity. The
scleractinians suffered considerably from the
drowning of the carbonate platforms on which
their reefs were based during the Late Jurassic
and Cretaceous. However, they recovered
quickly after the KT extinctions.
Echinodermata

The End-Permian extinction at the end of the Paleozoic Era took a heavy toll on the stemmed
echinoderms. The blastoids became extinct at that time and the crinoids suffered heavy
losses. In general, Paleozoic echinoderms were epifaunal suspension and detritus
feeders. Like so many high school students, their strategy was to sit more or less stationary
on the sea bottom with their mouths open and wait for food to come to them. In the
Mesozoic and Cenozoic, the echinoderms became more like undergraduates -- still bottomfeeders, but now willing to dig for it (infaunal detritus feeders) or, if sufficiently pressed, to
go and hunt for it (armored herbivores and carnivores).
This use of rather heavy armor
runs counter to a general trend
among Mesozoic life forms to
shed heavy plates and to
depend more on speed, or on
other behavioral adaptations
for
survival.
However,
behavioral strategies depend
on
having
the
neural
equipment to select a response
and adapt it to local
conditions. Echinoderms are
poorly adapted for this sort of
thing because they are
attractive, but brainless. So as
time went on, echinoderms,
like other attractive but brainless organisms, were increasingly forced to rely on heavy makeup, intimidating ornament, and a thick skin. The surviving crinoids, for example, were
articulates, with rounded, closely fitting armor plates, usually bearing elaborate
ornamentation. Some also gave up sessile life, left their stems behind, and became
motile. These swimming crinoids, the Rovecrinidae, are discussed briefly elsewhere.
However, for the most part, the old crinoid fauna simply died out. The future of the
Echinodermata lay with the Echinoidea and Asteroidea. Echinoids are rare in Paleozoic
faunas, but radiated extensively during the Mesozoic and Paleogene. Paleozoic, and even
Triassic, urchins have no compound plates, and the interambulacral plates are constructed in
many columns [1]. These earliest sea urchins are generally small and lack strong spine
development -- characters which developed over the course of the Mesozoic.
Porifera
Sponges as a whole did well and slowly diversified until the very end of the
Mesozoic. However, this general trend is made up of varying fates of different groups of
sponges. Demosponges and calcisponges recovered from the end-Permian extinction and
dominated the reef fauna once more in many locations during the Late Triassic. However,
they were gradually replaced by scleractinian corals. Hexactinnelids and some
stromatoporoids continued as important frame builders for the coral reefs of Jurassic Europe.
Demosponges and hyalosponges became more common in the Cretaceous. As sea levels
rose, these sponges were sometimes able to thrive in regions which had become too deep for
the corals. Mesozoic stromatoporoids (demosponges probably not related to the Paleozoic

forms) were significant reef-builders in the Cretaceous. All types of reef-building sponges
virtually disappeared at the KT boundary and never recovered. ATW040905
Vertebrates
Mesozoic Tetrapods
The Mesozoic era was an
extremely long period of
time, which saw the rise
and fall of successive
"dynasties" of life. At
least half a dozen
succesive
evolutionary
communities or empires
of
land
vertebrates
(tetrapods)
can
be
distinguished. Identifying
them by characteristic
large herbivores, these
can
be
called
the
lystrosaur
(Earliest
Triassic
[Induan]),
kannemeyeriidtraversodontid (primarily
Gondwanan, though this
may be sampling bias)
(Early [ Olenekian] to
Late (Carnian) Triassic ],
plateosaur-vulcanodontid
(Late Triassic [Norian] Early Jurassic), sauropodstegosaur (Middle to Late
Jurassic),
iguanodontnodosaur (Early to Mid
Cretaceous),
and
ceratopsian-hadrosaur
(Late
Cretaceous
Laurasia only, Gondwana
was
predominantly
Titanosaurid,
with
Abelisaurid carnivores)
communities
or
"empires". In the sea one finds what could be perhaps termed the mixosaur- nothosaur (Mid
Triassic), shastasaur (Late Triassic), ichthyosaur- plesiosaurid- rhomaleosaurid (Latest
Triassic [Rhaetian] - Early Jurassic), ophthalmosaur- pliosaurid- metriorhynchid (Middle
Jurassic-Early Cretaceous), and protostegid- elasmosaurid- mosasaur communities (Mid to
Late Cretaceous).

The following diagram is from Fig. 3. of Dr Robert T. Bakker's 1977 paper "Tetrapod Mass
Extinctions - A model of the regulation of speciation rates and immigration by cycles of
topographic diversity" in A. Hallam, ed. Patterns of Evolution as illustrated by the Fossil
Record, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Oxford, New York, pp.439-68
Although subsequent research has modified some of the family rankings and stratigraphic
correlations, the basic pattern remains.
Diversity of tetrapods, Early Triassic to Cretaceous. Standard marine stages are
indicated by initials in boxes at top. Narrow extensions of bars indicate that the family
is present but very rare. Families known from only one formation are omitted. Roman
numerals at top show the successive "dynasties". Biomass D for large herbivores for
Triassic taken from Fig. 2; D calculated for a few large Jurassic and Cretaceous
samples from the following formations: 1, Tendaguru (Kimmeridgian); 2, Morrison
(Kimmeridgian/Tithonian); 3, Old Man (Campanian); 4, Lower Edmonton A
(Campanian/Maastrichtian); 5, Lower Edmonton B (Maastrichtian); 6, Lance-Hell
Creek-Frenchman
(latest
Maastrichtian).
Family

abbreviations:

Marine Aquatics: A = henodontids; B = pachypleurosaurids; C = mixosaurids; D=

placocheliids; E = nothosaurids; F = shastasaurids; 0 = pliosaurids; H =
metriorhynchids; I= rhomaleosaurids; J = ichthyosaurids; K = plesiosaurids and
cryptoclidids; L = stenopterygiids; M = teleosaurids; N = rhamphorhynchids; O =
protostegids; P = mosasaurids; Q = cheloniids; R = toxocheliids; S = ichthyornids; T =
hesperornids; U = elasmosaurids; V = polycotylids; W = ornithocheirids
(pteranodontids);
X
=
ornithodesmids.
Large Fresh-Water Aquatics: A =amphisbaenids; B = varanids; C = pelomedusids; D =
dermatemyids; E = crocodylids; F = trionychids; G = pholidosaurids; H = goniopholids;
I
=
glyptopids;
J
=
emyids;
K
=
champsosaurids.
The sampling of non-marine tetrapods during the first eight stages of the Jurassic is so
poor that the records are not worth plotting on this compilation.
Large Terrestrial Herbivores: A = camarasaurids; B = diplodocids; C = stegosaurids; D
= brachiosaurids; E = cetiosaurids; F = camptosaurids; G = hypsilophodontids; H =
panoplosaurids; f = ceratopsids; J = iguanodontids; K = hadrosaurids; L =
protoceratopsids; M = titanosaurids; N = pachycephalosaurids; 0 = euoplocephalids.
Marine Reptiles

illustration Walking with Dinosaurs 1999 ABC, BBC

During the Mesozoic era there were a number of lineages of marine reptiles. In comparison
with the mammals, many more types of reptiles, having attained an existence on land,
returned to the seas. Aquatic adaptation (whether freshwater, estuarine, or marine) is a
common phenomenon among reptiles, due to their low metabolic rate, tolerance of anoxia
and of low body temperatures, and easy ability to make use of fermentative metabolism for
muscle activity. Moreover it does not require great structural or physiological changes, as
indicated by the modern marine iguana. Reptiles move with a naturally sinuous motion,
which is easily adaptable to swimming (as it comes originally from the swimming motion of
the fish). In marine iguanas aquatic locomotion requires only one quarter the metabolic
activity of terrestrial locomotion. When looked at this way, it is not surprising that reptiles
have returned to the water, like their tetrapod and fish ancestors, whenever conditions were
favourable.
The following is a list of aquatic reptiles, with some basic data. Note: Many of these pages
are under construction or very incomplete. So here they are: the marvelous Mesozoic marine
reptiles:

Picture

name

time-span

habita
location
t

approx size

food

estuar
invertebr
late Jurassic ine,
ates,
Central to
shell
c.75 fish,
Plesiochelyida [Kimmeridg near
East
ian] to early shore
cm???
plant
e
Laurasia
Cretaceous marin
material
e
?
Cretaceous
Desmatoche
lyidae
Albanian to
Desmatochely Maastrichtia
open
idae
+ n
ocean
Protostegidae Protostegid
ae
Turonian to
Maastrichtia
n

Desmatoche
lyidae
cosmopolita
n
Protostegid
ae - west
Laurasia
("inland
sea") only?

Desmatoche
lyidae - av.
1.2 meters
(shell)
Protostegid
ae - up to 4
meters long
(Archelon)

jellyfish,
other
invertebr
ates,
fish?

Toxochelyida
e

late
Cretaceous
(Coniacian open
to
ocean
Maastrichtia
n)

Cheloniidae

latest
Cretaceous
open
[Maastrichti
Worldwide
ocean
an]
to
Recent

jellyfish,
75 cm to other
over 1 meter invertebr
long
ates,
fish?

Triassic to
Jurassic,
a
few open
world wide
Ichthyosauria
stragglers
ocean
into
the
Cretaceous

1 to
meters

mostly
fish, also
23 cephalop
ods,
smaller
reptiles

1 to
meters

probably
shellfish
2.5
(Bivalve
mollusks
)

Placodontia

Triassic

west
jellyfish,
Laurasia
other
shell 60-120
("inland sea"
invertebr
cm
to
west
ates,
Atlantic)
fish?

near
shore
Tethys Sea
marin
e

estuar
Middle
ine,
Triassic
near
Pachypleuros
[Early
world wide
shore
auridae
Anisian to
marin
Ladinian]
e

fish,
20 cm to 1
crustace
meter
a, etc

Middle
to
early
late
Nothosaurida
Triassic
e
[Anisian to
Carnian]

Plesiosauria

near
shore
world-wide
marin
e

open
rare in the ocean
Triassic
(
a
common in few
world wide
the Jurassic estuar
and
ine
Cretaceous specie
s)

Aigialosaur
idae
Late
Jurassic to
Early
late
Cretaceous
(Tithonian
open
Mosasauroide
to Turonian)
ocean
a
Mosasaurid
ae:
late
Cretaceous
(Turonian to
Maastrichtia
n)
Thalattosauri
Triassic
a

2 to
meters

fish,
cephalop
14
ods,
other
reptiles

Aigialosaur
idae: av. 1
meter
Mosasaurid
ae: 2.5 to
17 meters

near
Tethys Sea,
shore
about
also
west
marin
meters
Laurasia
e

mostly
fish

1.5

fish,
cephalop
ods,
other
reptiles

fish,
crustace
a etc

nearshore
and
China
estuar
ine

probably
no info (~1 fish,
meter?)
crustace
a, etc

estuar
ine,
near
world wide
shore
marin
e

2 to 6 meters

mostly
fish

Jurassic to
open
Metriorhynch
Early
world wide
ocean
idae
Cretaceous

2 to 6 meters

mostly
fish

Nanchangosa
urus

earliest
Middle
Triassic
(Early
Anisian)

Aigialosaur
idae:
Europe
Mosasaurid
ae:
world
wide

2 to 8 meters

Teleosauridae Jurassic

During the 65 million years of the Cenozoic Era (also spelled "Cainozoic"), or Age of
Mammals, the world took on its modern form. Invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc were
essentially of modern types, but mammals, birds, protozoa and flowering plants still evolved
and developed during this period.
Traditionally, the Cenozoic Era was divided into two very unequal periods, the Tertiary
(which made up the bulk of the Cenozoic), and the Quaternary, which is only the last one and
a half million years or so. The Tertiary is in turn divided into Paleogene and Neogene. We
do not adopt this use of the "Tertiary" as a formal stratigraphic division for the following
reasons:
More than 95% of the Cenozoic era belongs to the Tertiary period, an unreasonable division
which reflects the arbitrary manner in which the geological epochs were first named. From
1760 to 1770, Giovanni Arduino, inspector of mines in Tuscany and later professor of
mineralogy at Padua, set forth the first classification of geological time, dividing the
sequence of the Earth's rocks into Primitive, Secondary, and Tertiary. During the 18th
century the names Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary were given to successive rock strata, the
Primary being the oldest, the Tertiary the more recent. In 1829 a fourth division, the
Quaternary, was added by P. G. Desnoyers. These terms were later abandoned, the Primitive
or Primary becoming the Paleozoic Era, and the Secondary the Mesozoic. But Tertiary and
Quaternary were retained for the two main stages of the Cenozoic. Admittedly, attempts to
replace the obsolete "Tertiary" with a more reasonable division of Palaeogene (early Tertiary)
and Neogene (later Tertiary and Quaternary) have not been completely successful, but most
of the newer geological timelines have rejected the Tertiary.
Revised ATW040925
Geology of the Cenozoic
During the Cenozoic, the fragmentation of continental landmasses continued as the Earth's
surface took on its present form. The major geologic events of the Cenozoic can be thought
of as two basic processes. First, four different large fragments of the Gondwanan
supercontinent moved north and became, to varying degrees, attached to the Laurasian
landmass. This resulted in a number of spectacular mountain-building events which
climaxed about the Early Miocene. Second, the north-south Atlantic spreading zone
continued to widen the Atlantic, contributing to geologic strains in East Africa and the
western parts of the Americas, as these continents were pushed into contiguous plates by the
growing
Atlantic
Ocean.
The defecting
Gondwanan
fragments were
South America,
Africa, India,
and
Australia. Sout
h America has
not pushed far

enough north to cause a the geological equivalent of a high speed collision with North
America. Instead, the impact was cushioned by a sort of air bag of small plates in what is
now the Caribbean Sea. In particular, the approach of the American continents pinched off
part of the Pacific crust, a region containing the sea bottom south and west of Cuba. The
cushioning effect of these intervening plates delayed the formation of a land bridge between
the Americas until the Middle Pliocene (Piacenzian), and has confined the effects of
continental collision to relatively mild and sporadic vulcanism around the Caribbean and its
southern and western margins. See image from Kerr et al. (1999). Various other
representations can be found at Prof. Manuel Iturralde's wonderful site on the Caribbean
plate: Comparison of different opinions...
A similar, but less pneumatic, effect has softened the impact of Africa on Europe. The
numerous microplates of the Mediterranean have been repeatedly rearranged and compressed
as Africa approached from the south. Nevertheless, Africa's attempt to subduct under the
European Plate has been a little like a hippopotamus trying to hide under a bed sheet -- there
have been some inevitable little lumps and wrinkles. Some of these, like today's Alps, are
difficult to overlook. Other, older ranges which run generally east to west across Europe are
also products of this process. In addition, the approach of Africa squeezed shut the old
Tethys Seaway, which played such a large part in Early Mesozoic tetrapod history, leaving
only a few puddles, such as the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.
The impact of India doesn't seem to have been mitigated at
all. A land bridge between India and the Asian mainland was
not established until the Eocene. However, the continental
shelves of Asia and India had been in contact for some time
before this, and elevation of the Himalayas has been ongoing
throughout the Cenozoic. Initially, most of the impact was in
the East, as India attempted to subduct under Asia to become
the basement level of Tibet. In the Miocene, the force of the
collision was distributed further west, forming the high
plateaus of Afghanistan and Iran, with collateral consequences
as far west as Eastern Europe. Perhaps the same fate awaits
Australia, the last of the Gondwanan refugees. However,
Australia has been dawdling along in the Pacific and has only
recently begun to interact with the outlying portions of the
Indonesian plates.
While the northern and southern continents have been getting
progressively cozier, the Mid-Atlantic spreading ridge has been busy separating east from
west. In the north, after splitting Greenland from North America, the rift abruptly changed
course in the Paleogene and began to separate Northern Europe from Greenland. As a result,
the last land bridge between North America and Europe was broken in the Eocene. The
westward pressure on the Americas may well have been responsible for the Laramide
Orogeny in the Western United States during the Paleogene, and the seamless merger of the
subduction zones of North and South America later on. It is less clear that it has had any role
in the more recent events which raised the current complex set of north-south mountain
ranges in North America.
On the other side, in East Africa, the eastward pressure of the Mid-Atlantic ridge, combined
with the opposite forces generated by the impact of India, created enormous stresses. As a

result, the Arabian peninsula was rotated and torn off the East coast of Africa, and a series of
deep faults have begun to fracture the African plate. Late in the Cenozoic, the main rift
valley running through Ethiopia, Kenya, and points south, became the home of several
species of large, noisy, and nearly hairless apes.
Image: The satellite image is from NASA. It shows the southern part of the rift system in
East Africa with a few of the great lakes which have developed in the rift valleys. Part of
Lake Tanganyika is in the upper left corner. The lake in the upper central portion is Lake
Malawi.
ATW040924. All text public domain. No rights reserved.
Timescale
The following table gives the component periods and epochs that make up the Cenozoic. In
addition to the Neogene and Paleogene Periods below, the helpful folks at the ICS have
added a sub-era (or possibly period, subperiod, or supra-age), the Quaternary, which begins at
the base of the Gelasian Age and extends through the present day. Obviously, this makes no
sense at all, since the same body abolished the "Tertiary" just a year or two ago -- not to
mention the fact that the rules on chronostratigraphic units don't seem to allow for a unit
which begins in the middle of one epoch and ends in another. It would make much more
sense to move the Gelasian Age (a unit which was only created in 1996) to the
Pleistocene. Then the Pleistocene would become the age of continental ice sheets, which is
precisely the reason it was thought necessary to recognize the "Quaternary." This sensible
proposal was actually considered, but it was far too late. The ICS had already established a
Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. Kings may die or abdicate. Nations may be
conquered and governments dissolved. Even whole continents may fractured and dispersed
by cataclysmic rifting. But committees do not vote themselves out of existence.

Period Epoch

Age

Pleisto
cene

North
American
South
Land
American
Mammal
Land
Ages
Mammal
("NALMA"
Ages
)
("SALM
Paleobiolog
A")
y Database
(2006)

0.0118
(0.011
8)

Holoce
ne
Neoge
ne

Europ
ean
Geomag Approxi
Neoge
Base
netic
mate
ne
(durati Polarity Central
Mam
on)
Zone
Parateth
mal
(base)
ys Stage
Zones
(base)

Late

0.126
(0.114
2)

Middle

0.781
(0.655)

Lujanian
(0.3)

Early

Irvingtonian
Ensenadan (1.8),
(1.5)
Rancholabre
an (1.02)

1.81
C1 (1.8)
(1.029)

MN 17
(2.5), Uquian
MmQ1 (2.5)
(2.0)

Gelasia 2.59
n
(0.78)

Chapadma
MN 16
lalan
(3.2)
(3.0)

Pliocen Piacenz 3.60

ian
(1.01)
e

Dacian

MN 15
Monteher
(4.2),
Blancan
mosan
(
MN 14
(4.9)
5.4)
(4.9)

Messini 7.25
an
(1.92)

Pontian

MN 13
(7.1)

Tortoni 11.6
an
(4.35)

MN 12
(7.7),
MN 11
C3 (7.4), Pannonia (8.7),
C4 (9.7) n
MN 10
(9.7),
MN 9
(11.3)

Zanclia 5.33
n
(1.73)

C2 (4.2)

MN
Sarmatia 7/8
n, later (12.7),
Badenian MN 6
(13.8)

Serraval 13.7
(2.1)
Miocen lian
e

Karpatia
n,
Ottnangi MN 4 Santacruci Hemingfordi
C5 (19.1)
an,
(16.8) an (17.5) an (20.6)
Eggenbur
gian

Aquitan 23.0
ian
(2.6)
Paleog Oligoce Chattia
n
ene
ne

28.4
(5.4)

Mayoian
(12),
Clarendonian
Laventenia (13.6)
n (13.8)

Colloncuri
earlier
MN 5 an (15.5), Barstovian
Badenian (16.0) Friasian
(16.3)
(16.3)

Langhia 16.0
n
(2.3)

Burdiga 20.4
lian
(4.4)

Huayqueri
an (9.0), Hemphillian
Chasicoan (10.3)
(10)

Colhuehua
pian (21)

Egerian
C9
(28.2),
C8

MN 1
(23.9)

Harrisonian
(24.8)

(26.5),
C7
(24.9),
C6 (24.1)

Rupelia 33.9
n
(5.5)

Deseadan
(29)

Priabon 37.2
ian
(3.3)

C17/16
(36.3),
C12
(33.0)

Tinguirica
n (36)

Bartoni 40.4
an
(3.2)

C19
(41.3),
C18
(40.4),
C17
(37.6)

48.6
Lutetian
(8.2)

C21
(48.6),
C20
(45.1)

Divisadera
Duchesnean
n
(42),
(42), Uintan
Mustersan
(46.2)
(48)

Ypresia 55.8
n
(7.2)

C23
(52.6),
C22
(50.6)

Casamayo Bridgerian
ran (54.0- (50.3), Wasa
51.0)*
tchian (55.4)

Thaneti 58.7
an
(2.9)

C24
(56.6)

Rochican
(57.055.5)

Clarkforkian
(56.8)

Selandi 61.7
an
(3.0)

C25
(58.4)

Itaboran
(59.057.5)

Tiffanian
(60.2)

65.5
(3.8)

C29
(65.5),
C28
(64.6),
C27
(63.4),
C26
(61.7)

Peligrosan
(62.561.0),
Tiumpamp
an (64.563.0)

Torrejonian
(63.3),
Puercan (65),
Lancian
(69.7)

Eocene

Paleoce
ne

Danian

Climate

Geringean
(30.8),
Whitneyan
(33.3),
Orellan
(33.9)

C11
(30.6),
C10
(29.3)

Chadronian
(38)

During the Paleogene the climate worldwide was warm and tropical, much as it had been for
most of the preceding Mesozoic. The Neogene saw a drastic cooling in the world's climate,
possibly caused by the Himalayan uplift (Tibetan plateau) that was generated by the Indian
subcontinent ramming into the rest of Asia (and is still going on now). During the
Pleistocene, the continuing cooling climate resulted in an ice age, or rather a series of ice ages
with interspersed warm periods
Life
With the end Cretaceous extinction event and the extinction of the ammonites and most of the
belemnites, teleost fishes dominated neritic (near shore) and pelagic faunas. Plankton
recovered and basically belonged to modern groups. Coleoidea, Crustaceans, nudibranch
mollusks and polychaete worms make up a large part of the larger zooplankton. The large
marine reptiles of the Mesozoic were replaced by cetacean mammals (dolphins, whales and
their kin) that first appeared during the Eocene. And while the protostegids (which included
giants like Archelon) disappeared with the end-Cretaceous extinction, modern sea turtles
survived quite happily.
The Paleogene saw the diversification of many mammalian and bird groups,
flourishing in the tropical conditions. During the early Paleogene the continents
were isolated by shallow seas, and different lineages of Mammals evolved on each
one. Mammals included many giant yet small-brained rhinoceros-like types - the
Asiamerican uintatheres, and brontotheres and the African arsinoitheres. There
were huge flightless carnivorous birds - the Laurasian diatrymids (left) and the
South American phorusrhacids - 2 meters tall with cruel curved beaks, that mimicked the
great theropod dinosaurs of the Mesozoic. All these animals lived in tropical forests. The
champsosaurs, crocodile-like "eosuchian" reptiles - living fossils of their time - survived the
dinosaurs and the K-T extinction but died out later in the Paleogene. In the seas the first
archaic toothed whales appeared. Giant marine protozoa, (foraminifers) the size of lentils
evolved during the Eocene. Bivalve and Gastropod molluscs were basically the same type as
today. The nautilids experienced their last mild evolutionary radiation. Transitional forms
ancestral to modern coleoid cephalopods evolved. Echinoderms, corals, bryozoa and sponges
were basically of modern type. On land insects were generally of modern type. Ants were
even more numerous then they are today.
During the Neogene modern mammals and flowering plants evolve, as well as
many strange mammals that are no longer around. The most astonishing
thing to happen during the early Neogene was the evolution of grass. This led
to the evolution of long-legged running animals adapted to life on the savanna
and prairie. The horse family - Equidae - was an especial success story
during the Neogene. Horses and other grazing mammals evolved highcrowned teeth to cope with a diet of abrasive grass. There were still many forest animals
however. The Mastodons lived on every continent except Australia. Many strange mammals
- litopterns, notoungulates, ground sloths, borhyaenids, etc - continued to evolve in isolation
in Hominids appeared in the Africa savannas, the Australopithecines. The oceans were
inhabited by whales basically like modern forms, which had replaced the archaic toothed
whales. They were the most intelligent animals of their time, but they never developed the
use of tools or a memetic noosphere. In the north Pacific were the Desmostylids - a sort of
cross between an elephant and a seal. Also in the seas were the largest carnivorous sharks

ever to live - the Carcharodon megalodon, a predecessor of the modern White Pointer but
much larger and heavier.
The Pleistocene period saw essentially modern flora and invertebrate
species. However many mammalian types were of species and genera now
extinct, and generally of large size - the various species of mammoth, the Irish
"elk" (left), a large diversity of rhinos, the giant ground sloths, the diprotodonts
of Australia, and many more. Man evolved as an ice-age mammal in
Europe. A combination of human hunting ("stone age overkill") and climatic change served
to kill off most worlds megafauna.
Sumber : http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/455062/Phanerozoic-Eon
Phanerozoic Eon, the span of geologic time extending about 542 million years from the end of the
Proterozoic Eon (which began about 2.5 billion years ago) to the present. The Phanerozoic, the eon
of visible life, is divided into three major spans of time largely on the basis of characteristic
assemblages of life-forms: the Paleozoic (542 million to 251 million years ago), Mesozoic (251 million
to 65.5 million years ago), and Cenozoic (65.5 million years ago to the present) eras. Although life
clearly originated at some time, probably quite early, in the Proterozoic Eon, not until the
Phanerozoic did a rapid expansion and evolution of forms occur and fill the various ecological niches
available. The key to this great Phanerozoic expansion appears to lie in the development of plants
able to carry out the photosynthetic process and thus release free oxygen into the atmosphere.
Before this time, the Earths atmosphere contained negligible amounts of free oxygen, and animals,
in which energy transfers involving the process of respiration are critical, were unable to develop.
During the Phanerozoic, the Earth gradually assumed its present configuration and physical features
through such processes as continental drift, mountain building, and continental glaciation. Thus,
although the Phanerozoic Eon represents only about the last one-eighth of time since the Earths
crust formed, its importance far exceeds its relatively short duration.

Sumber : http://essayweb.net/geology/timeline/phanerozoic.shtml
Phanerozoic Eon
The phanerozoic is the most recent eon in geological terms. It started about 542 million years
ago, and continues to this day. The name "phanerozoic" (meaning visible or apparent life)
reflects that this was the period when large organisms (visible to the naked eye) appeared in
great profusion. In the early days of geology, this was the designation given to strata where
metazoan fossils first started to appear. Today, this definition remains largely true, though we
now know that in some places at least, metazoans appeared earlier than the start of the
phanerozoic (in the Ediacaran or Vendian period of the preceding proterozoic era). At any
rate, this was the period when metazoans started to diversify and multiply greatly. This rapid
expansion of metazoan life forms is sometimes referred to as the Cambrian Explosion. The
phanerozoic is a brief period in the Earth's history, about half a billion years, a bit less than
12% of the time that the Earth has existed, but almost all metazoan life is confined to this
period.
The Phanerozoic Eon
Million Years Ago
Eon

Era

Period
Cambrian 542 490

Ordovician

490

444

Silurian

444

416

Devonian

416

360

Carboniferous 360

299

Permian

299

251

Triassic

251

Phanerozoic 200

Jurassic

200

145

Paleozoic

Mesozoic

Cretaceous 145

65

Paleocene

65

55.8

Eocene

55.8

33.9

Oligocene

33.9

23.0

Miocene

23.0

5.33

Cenozoic

The Phanerozoic Eon

Eon

Era

Period

Pliocene

5.33

Million Years Ago

1.80

Pleistocene 1.80

0.0117

Holocene

present

0.0117

The causes of this (relatively) sudden explosion of multicellular life are not well understood.
Life on Earth appeared at least 3.5 billion years ago, in the paleoarchean, as evidenced by
stromatolites found in rocks of that age in Australia. For much of Earth's history, life was
unicellular and prokaryotic. But eukaryotes appeared about 1.4 billion years ago, during the
mesoproterozoic, and the first evidence of multicellular life is almost as ancient - about 1.2
billion years old, during the Ectasian period of the mesoproterozoic. Why then, did it take
another half billion years for more complex forms to appear? Assuming, of course, that the
fossil record is reliable in this regard, which is by no means certain. Small soft-bodied
animals do not fossilize well, and rocks of such great age are relatively uncommon. So it may
well be that complex life goes back earlier than we currently know. As mentioned above, the
discovery of Ediacaran fossils also produced a change in our thinking, pushing back the
appearance of complex multicellular life by another 20+ million years.
Such ideas also have implications about how we think of evolution. The sudden appearance
of a diversity of organisms during the Cambrian was one of the reasons why evolutionary
biologists such as Stephen Jay Gould proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium - that
evolution follows a pattern of relative stasis interrupted by bursts of rapid change. However,
with the discovery of earlier fossils, such as those from the Ediacaran, it is becoming clearer
that these "bursts" of change were not as abrupt as we had thought, that they were part of a
more gradual process of evolution. Also, modern re-interpretations of early Ediacaran and
Cambrian fossils indicate that they might not be as "diverse" as we previously thought. Some
of the forms of these fossils (such as critters with 5 eyes or 3 legs) were so different from
modern life that people assumed that numerous new phyla suddenly appeared, and
competition between them caused some to become extinct, leaving behind only the more
successful ones. But modern interpretations show that it is not necessary to assume such a
plurality of phyla, that the great diversity seen in the fossil record may reflect modifications
and variations of much fewer fundamental body plans.
Given these things, it is still remarkable how much life changed at the start of the
phanerozoic. This was truly the beginning of large, macroscopic, complex life - the period in
which such life became established, evolved, and led to most of the forms we see today.

Landmasses during the Phanerozoic

Plate tectonics drives the movement and formation of continents, and over the history of the
Earth, continents have appeared, changed shape, moved around, and sometimes disappeared.
Here is a short blurb I wrote on the presumed history of different continents. Prior to the
phanerozoic, the supercontinent Rodinia existed between about 1.1 billion and 750 million

years ago. Rodinia was a barren, desolate landmass, since life had not yet colonized land.
Around 750 million years ago, Rodinia started to rift apart, and broke into 3 major pieces:
Proto-Laurasia, Proto-Gondwana, and the Congo craton. Proto-Laurasia drifted southwards
towards the South Pole. Proto-Gondwana rotated northwards, and for a time, the Congo
craton lay between these two landmasses, forming another supercontinent - Pannotia - around
600 million years ago, just before the start of the phanerozoic. Since the two major
landmasses lay towards the poles, joined by a much smaller landmass at the equator (the
Congo craton), the climate is presumed to have been very cold, with extensive glaciation.

Temperature record of the Earth during its 4.6 billion year history (from Barry Saltzman,
Dynamical Paleoclimatology: Generalized Theory of Global Climate Change, Academic
Press, New York, 2002, fig. 1-3).
The radiation of complex life starts with this period, around 563 million years ago, in the
Ediacaran. This was a period of major changes. Pannotia existed for a very short time around 60 million years - because the collisions that formed it were glancing collisions
between landmasses that were already rifting and breaking up. Around 540 million years ago,
the breakup of Pannotia was complete - into 4 major landmasses: Laurentia, Gondwana,
Baltica and Siberia.
The last supercontinent was Pangaea, which formed during the early Permian, about 300
million years ago. This landmass existed more or less intact for the next 100-150 million
years, until it started to break up in the early-mid Jurassic. The break up was in 3 phases,
beginning with the early/mid Jurassic up to the end of the Cretaceous and the beginning of
the Cenozoic, around 50-60 million years ago.
These events are important in understanding the distribution of plants and animals, for
example, in explaining why North American dinosaurs in the Cretaceous did not spread
across the rest of the world (north America had already broken away from the Pangaean
landmass during the mid-Jurassic). Also, the breakup and rifting of this huge landmass
created many shallow seas, which were important habitats for many animals that existed
during the time.

Climate during the Phanerozoic

It is difficult to estimate the climate or average temperature of the Earth in past geological
ages. Various indirect means are used to deduce these things, and the degree of error is very
high the farther back in time we go. More accurate readings are available for relatively recent
times, based on ice cores taken from the Antarctica or the Greenland ice cap. The Vostok and
EPICA cores from the Antarctica go back at least 450,000 years. For earlier periods, the
records are much less reliable.
The accompanying climate graph shows the estimated temperature of the Earth over its 4.6
billion year history. We assume that the Earth cooled down rapidly from the hot, semi-molten
state in which it was formed, and within the first 100 million year or so, the surface was cool
enough to support liquid water. Of course, surface temperatures were still much higher than
they are today. By about 4 billion years ago, the Earth was on a cooling trend, but average
global temperatures were still much higher than today (about 25-28 C compared to about 15
C today).

Atmospheric Oxygen Levels, two different records, based on (1) Berner, R, et al., 2003,
Phanerozoic atmospheric oxygen, Ann. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci., V, 31, p. 105-134, and (2)
Falkowski, P, et al., 2005, The rise of oxygen over the past 205 million years and the
evolution of large placental mammals, Science, V. 309, p. 2202-2204 (Sept. 2005)
Note that the time scale (y-axis) on the climate graph is not to scale. The pre-cambrian is
shown on a much smaller scale, followed by the paleozoic and mesozoic on the same medium
scale, and finally the quaternary on a much larger scale. In the early (pre-cambrian) record,
we see high average temperatures, with one large dip in the temperature graph, corresponding
to the Huronian glaciation, about 2.4 - 2.1 billion years ago during the Siderian period. Life
has existed on Earth for at least 3.5 billion years (perhaps even 4 billion years), but around

2.8 billion years ago, with the evolution of photosynthetic organisms, oxygen started being
produced in large quantities. For many hundreds of millions of years, this oxygen production
produced no discernable rise in atmospheric oxygen, due to the presence of various oxygen
sinks or buffers. However, around 2.5 billion years ago, enough oxygen had accumulated to
produce an Oxygen Catastrophe. Life during that period was anaerobic, and oxygen was toxic
to it. During the oxygen catastrophe some trigger either released vast amounts of accumulated
oxygen, or else the oxygen buffers reached their capacity, and free oxygen started rising,
causing a mass extinction event. This was possibly the trigger for the Huronian glaciation,
though the exact mechanism remains unknown.
The next major dip in the graph occurred around 800 - 630 million years ago, during the
Cryogenian. This was the most extensive cooling the Earth has ever seen, and resulted in the
"snowball Earth" scenario, when glaciers possibly covered the entire Earth. This cooling may
have been associated with the formation and breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia, which
interrupted oceanic currents that disperse heat from the equator.
The phanerozoic begins with the warming of the Earth after the Cryogenian. The initial
radiation of metazoa precedes the phanerozoic by a few million years, in the late Ediacaran
period. This is pretty much the period when the Earth had warmed to temperatures similar to
the present, after the cryogenian glaciations.
During the first part of the phanerozoic - the paleozoic era, the Earth was somewhat warmer
than today. Glaciations were rare, and the climate was much more stable than today. The two
notable glaciations during this period occurred during the late Ordovician and late
Carboniferous, and both are associated with extinction events. For much of the paleozoic, the
Earth was free of glaciers and sea levels were high. This turned many of the lower altitude
parts of the continents into shallow seas, where marine life first took hold. During the early
paleozoic, most metazoan life was still in the sea - it was not until the middle paleozoic that
life on land first took hold.
The middle part of the phanerozoic - the mesozoic, was accompanied by rising temperatures
and a stable climate, with no glaciations. In the early mesozoic, the climate was hot and dry.
Pangaea was a huge landmass, and the interior parts must have been vast deserts, being far
away from the oceans. Despite the high temperatures (probably about 10 C warmer on
average than today), sea levels remained low, because the landmass was clustered into one
large continent.
In the Jurassic, Pangaea started to break apart. Although temperatures continued to rise, the
spreading of the sea floor increased sea levels, as new crust was formed on the sea floors.
This caused flooding of the low lying coastal areas, and together with the increase in
coastlines due to the breakup of Pangaea, the climate became much more humid. The vast
deserts of the Triassic retreated, and for the most part, were confined to the interiors of
continents.
Oxygen levels were lower in the Jurassic than they are today. Good estimates are lacking, so
it's hard to say how much lower. The accompanying graph shows the oxygen levels according
to two published papers. The more recent record shows the Jurassic starting with oxygen
levels below 10% (though they rapidly rise to 15-17% for the rest of the mesozoic). These
figures have been disputed. Many people believe that oxygen levels were at least high enough

to support natural combustion, which requires atmospheric oxygen levels of at least 12% (at
least 15% according to some newer publications).
The climate of the late mesozoic, or Cretaceous, is less certain. Some people believe that the
much higher levels of carbon dioxide which existed at the time produced a flat temperature
gradient across the whole Earth, with very little dependence on latitude. If this is true,
equatorial regions must have been hot enough to be largely deserts, despite the presence of
nearby oceans. No glaciers could exist even at the poles with such a flat temperature gradient.
This is also disputed, since some computer models indicate that glaciers should exist at least
at the poles. However, there is no geological record of any glaciations during the entire
mesozoic.
High temperatures would have also warmed the oceans, and some models show that the
oceans may have reached temperatures of up to 20 C, even in the deep ocean. This would
have been too warm for sea life, and probably vast volumes of the ocean lacked enough
oxygen as well to sustain life. These conclusions remain uncertain, though, and more research
is needed to better understand the climate during the cretaceous.
The late phanerozoic, or Cenozoic period shows continuing warm temperatures at the
beginning, but a prolonged cooling trend starting towards the end of the Eocene. This was
due to the separation of South America from the Antarctica (the opening of the Drake
Passage), which allowed the formation of the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, which brings
cool water from the depths of the Antarctica to the surface.
The cooling trend continued through the Miocene, with small fluctuations between warmer
and colder periods. Towards the end of the Miocene, South America became attached to
North America, forming a continuous land barrier between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
This caused the strengthening of the Humboldt Current and the Gulf Stream, which rapidly
cooled down the Arctica. This cooling of the northern hemisphere produced a steeper cooling
trend, specially since the start of the Pleistocene, which continue to this day. This has led to
cycles of intense glaciations, called ice ages, during which glaciers advance from the north
and form mile-thick sheets of ice over the northern landmasses. We are currently in an
interglacial warm period.

Paleozoic Era
This was the first and longest era of the phanerozoic eon, covering the first half of of the
phanerozoic, from about 542 - 251 million years ago. It started with the breakup of Pannotia,
a short lived supercontinent that existed after the parts that made up Rodinia broke apart and
briefly combined again, and ends with the formation of Pangaea, the last great
supercontinent.
This was a very eventful period for life on Earth, beginning with the appearance of most
modern phyla, major radiations of various groups of organisms. There were major radiations
of several groups of organisms. The first land plants appeared, and eventually became vast
forests. There was great diversity and experimentation. And then it all ended abruptly, with
the largest mass extinction of life that the Earth has ever known.
The paleozoic is divided into the following periods.

Cambrian
This is the first period of the first era (paleozoic) of the phanerozoic eon. The beginning of
the Cambrian is somewhat controversial, and different geologists place it at different points in
time. The International Commission on Stratigraphy decided to date it to 542 0.3 million
years ago, based on a carbon excursion that can be precisely dated to that time. It ends about
490 million years ago.
As mentioned earlier, multicellular life had started to radiate prior to the Cambrian, in the
Ediacaran period of the neoproterozoic. However, this life appears to be somewhat different
from the forms found in the early Cambrian. Partly for this reason, it is believed that there
was an extinction event at the beginning of the Cambrian. Evidence for this extinction event
is also found in the carbon excursion that is used to date the beginning of the Cambrian. It
appears that many of the earlier forms of life that appeared in the Ediacaran suddenly
disappear at the beginning of the Cambrian, soon to be replaced by other (equally complex)
life forms. Even some very ancient life forms (such as stromatolites - colonies of
cyanobacteria) which had existed for billions of years, in great profusion, almost vanished in
this extinction event, the cause of which is not known.

Trilobites were very common in the Cambrian

The first hard shelled animals appeared during the Cambrian, around 530 million years ago.
These are trilobites, a now-extinct class of arthropods, as well as the first crustaceans and
mollusks. Note that arthropods may have appeared even earlier. There is some speculation
that Parvancorina and Spriggina, elements of the Ediacaran biota about 550 million years
old, were also arthropods. Hard shelled organisms fossilize well, hence the profusion of
trilobites in the fossil record. The first coral reefs probably appeared in the Cambrian, as well
as the first vertebrates, such as Myllokunmingia.
However, there are places where soft-bodied Cambrian fauna have been well-preserved, such
as the Burgess Shale, which is about 505 million years old, around the middle Cambrian.
Some of the early Burgess Shale finds provoked much controversy, since they seemed to
represent animals completely unlike any that are found today, and with very awkward
designs. There were examples such as Opabinia, with 5 eyes, a backward facing mouth
underneath its head, and a proboscis extending forward from the head to end in a spined claw.
Another example was Hallucigenia, which was supposed to have rows of rigid spines on
which it walked, with tentacles waving at the top. It was bizarre reconstructions like these
which led authors like Stephen Jay Gould to think that the Cambrian was a time of great
experimentation due to unusual evolutionary pressure, and that most of these "experiments"
failed and did not lead to any modern phyla.
More recent studies have cast doubt, both on the reconstructions, and on the theory.
Hallucigenia is not so strange if it's reconstructed upside down - the "tentacles" then become
legs for walking, and the rigid spines possibly a defensive mechanism, similar to many later
organisms. Opabinia has also been found to be closely related to arthropods, as have many
other seemingly bizarre animals from the Cambrian.
So while it remains true that there was a high degree of diversity during the Cambrian, it is
less certain if this was anything exceptional, when we find similar degrees of high diversity
during the Ediacaran immediately preceding it, as well as during the Ordovician radiation that
followed.
Most of Cambrian life evolved and lived solely in the shallow seas that were formed as the
supercontinent Pannotia split apart. There is no generally accepted evidence of any life on
land at the time. It is possible that some regions of land did have some sort of microbial
"scum", consisting of bacteria, algae, or lichens. Such microbial land cover may have evolved
even before the Cambrian, though there is little direct evidence of it. Without plants, soils
cannot exist. Land would have been either barren rock, with weathered patches of sand. Sand
is not capable of holding water. However, films of cyanobacteria have been found even in
modern deserts, so it seems that something similar could have existed long ago, before there
were any plants. Cyanobacteria, algae and lichens (symbiotes, consisting of a fungus with a
photosynthetic partner such as cyanobacteria) may have existed on land in very ancient times.

Ordovician
The end of the Cambrian was marked by another extinction event, which can be dated to
approximately 488.3 1.7 million years ago. This marks the beginning of the Ordovician
period, which lasted about 44.6 million years, up to about 443.7 1.5 million years ago. The
end of the Ordovician is also associated with a major extinction event, which wiped out about
60% of the existing genera at the time.

Most of the Earth's landmass was still in the southern hemisphere at the time, and the climate
was warmer than today. There were numerous shallow seas, and a great deal of sedimentary
rock dating to this period still exists today. Towards the end of the Ordovician there were
some glaciations, so sea levels rose and fell accordingly, but were generally higher than
today.

Artist's Impression of Life in Ordovician

Ordovician fauna was very diverse. There was a significant radiation of life during the
Ordovician, representing about 12% of all phanerozoic fauna. There were 4x as many marine
organisms as during the Cambrian.
Trilobites diversified rapidly during the Ordovician, reflecting the increasing evolutionary
pressure of co-evolving organisms. Some trilobites developed ridges and spines as a
defensive measure, others started swimming for the first time, instead of just crawling along
the sea floor. Cephalopods (from which the modern Octopus is descended) and crinoids
developed first during the Ordovician. Other forms of marine life from this period include
primitive nautiloids and sharks, the first mosses (bryozoa), and the first jawed fish.
Two important developments of this period include the great profusion of shell secreting
organisms (which sequester carbonate in their shells) and the first appearance of land plants.
Plant spores dating from the late Ordovician have been found. It is uncertain what the nature
of these first plants was. It seems likely that they were some sort of avascular plants, such as
moss (bryozoa), though it is possible that marine fungi first colonized the land, in the form of
lichens, which are a symbiotic combination of a fungus and some photosynthetic algae.
Towards the end of the Ordovician there was a series of glaciations, which probably led to
the end-Ordovician extinctions. These were fairly severe, causing the loss of about 50-60% of
all existing genera. It is thought that a series of glaciations raised and lowered sea levels
repeatedly, severely affecting the many shallow seas where life flourished. These glaciations
are linked with a lowering of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is uncertain if life had any role in
this, though the diversification of carbonate-shell secreting organisms during the Ordovician
seems suggestive.

Silurian

The Silurian began after the end-Ordovician extinction event, about 443.7 1.5 million years
ago, and ended about 416 2.8 million years ago. This was a period of recovery after the
extinction, during which the glaciers largely retreated, the climate was warm, and there was a
minor greenhouse effect going. The climate was relatively stable, unlike previous ages which
had been marked by large fluctuations. The warm climate resulted in the melting of glaciers,
and therefore sea levels were relatively high.
The split up of Rodinia was far advanced in the Silurian. Land consisted of the supercontinent
of Gondwana in the southern hemisphere, surrounded by about 6 smaller continents. The
northern hemisphere was mostly a single large ocean. There was no major volcanic activity
during the Silurian, although the Caledonian orogeny (which had begun earlier, at the start of
the Ordovician), was in full swing.
Silurian biota include the first coral reefs, the first bony fishes, and the first fishes with
movable jaws. Arthropods grew to huge sizes, specially the Eurypterids (sea scorpions),
which grew to sizes of 6-7 feet, and must have been formidable predators. The earliest
common evidence of life on land (arachnids and centipedes) dates from this period, though
some arthropods may have colonized land much earlier (in the Cambrian). The earliest
recognizable shark scales are from the Silurian. The first leeches appeared also at this time.
On land, the first record of vascular plants dates to this period. There were probably extensive
"forests" of mosses, lichens, and the early vascular plants (which show the first signs of
xylem and phloem), such as Cooksonia, Baragwanathia, and Psilophyton.
The Silurian ended with a series of minor extinction events, probably due to climate change
or impact events.

Devonian
The Devonian period lasted from about 416 2.8 million to 359.2 2.5 million years ago, a
duration of almost 57 million years. This was a relatively warm period, glaciation was minor
or non-existent, with consequently high sea levels. A lot of land was submerged beneath the
water, forming shallow seas. This was a period of high tectonic activity, as the continents
were moving closer together in a process that would eventually lead to the formation of
Pangaea. Although the climate was warm, carbon dioxide levels fell through the Devonian, as
growing forests of plants on land locked away carbon and became buried (there are oil and
gas deposits found today in some Devonian rocks).

Artist's Impression of Devonian Forests

There were significant developments in the Earth's biota during the Devonian. The first
vascular plants, which had appeared earlier during the Silurian, now spread across much of
the land. In the early Devonian, these plants were quite small, probably no more than a meter
in height. In the late Devonian, plants such as lycophytes, sphenophytes, ferns and
progymnosperms appeared, which were much larger. Many of these plants had true roots and
leaves, which were not a feature of earlier plants. The landscape was probably dominated by
huge ferns, and contained many other strange plant-forms, such as the giant fungus
Prototaxites (the tall tree-like things in the accompanying artists impression, with tree-like
trunks and branches), which formed trunks as wide as a meter and grew to heights of nearly
30 feet.
Towards the end of the Devonian, the seed-bearing plants (spermatophytes) and the first real
trees appeared, such as the progymnosperm Archaeopteris, which was probably among the
first plants with true wood, thus being a tree. At the end of the Devonian, huge forests existed
throughout the land masses, unmolested by land herbivores, which had not yet developed.
This enormous diversity of plant life that appeared in the late Devonian is sometimes known
as the "Devonian Explosion".
A recent discovery of footprints in what is now southeastern Poland indicates that the
colonization of land by animals began fairly early in the Devonian. These footprints have
been dated to about 397 million years old, and include a group of animals called tetrapods.
Tetrapods developed in the shallow seas long before they walked on land. It is believed that
the coasts of such seas, as well as freshwater swamps, formed rich ecosystems, as plants
colonized the land. Tetrapods probably evolved in such habitats close to the water's edge,

where the profusion of plants made limbs useful in moving around in the underwater clutter
of roots, stems, and decaying plant matter. The first tetrapods were probably completely
aquatic, and only later did they develop the ability to survive outside the water. These were
probably shallow, tidal marine environments, where water surged and retreated with the tides,
and it was beneficial to be able to both swim and walk. Some of the tetrapods represented by
the footprints from Poland show that they grew up to 10 feet in size.

Devonian fishes, including sharks, ray-finned fishes, placoderms.

It's important to remember that although tetrapods were the first vertebrates to colonize land,
arthropods had already done so much earlier. The earliest evidence of life on land goes as far
back as the Cambrian. Track ways are found in what must have been wet coastal sand, of a
burrowing organism known as Climactichnites, which was possibly an arthropod. During the
early Devonian, the early land vegetation (mostly tiny shrubs and plants, many without root
systems and leaves, some without vascular systems), probably provided ecosystems for
various types of arthropods and the first true insects (which appeared at the beginning of the
Devonian, about 426 million years ago) - such as mites, wingless insects, etc. These early
land insects are not well known, but they appeared in the early Devonian, whereas the first
land vertebrates did not appear until the end of the Devonian. The development of trees with
true roots during the late Devonian led to the creation of the first soils, which were probably
colonized by burrowing and crawling insects and arthropods. These plants, soils, and insects
formed rich ecosystems, which were probably necessary for the beginning of the movement
of the first vertebrates to the land, at the end of the Devonian.
A recently discovered fish fossil, showing a fish embryo attached to its mother through an
umbilical cord, shows the first evidence of animals giving live birth to their young. This has
been dated to about 375 - 380 million years old, the late Devonian. This fish was a
placoderm, a kind of armored fish that was very common in the middle paleozoic. This

particular species was about 10 inches long, though other placoderms grew up to 20 feet in
size. Placoderms became extinct at the end of the Devonian.
The Devonian ended with two extinction events. The earlier event is dated to about 364
million years ago, when most of the fossil agnathan fishes disappeared. A second wave of
extinctions followed soon after. These extinctions primarily involved the marine
environment, and primarily the warm and shallow seas where life was profuse. Land
plants/animals and deep/cool water fishes were much less affected. These extinction events
marked the end for many genera, being more severe than the end-Cretaceous extinction that
wiped out the dinosaurs. The cause of the extinction remains unknown, though various
theories have been proposed (such as asteroid impact, loss of atmospheric carbon dioxide as
it was locked up by forests). A cooler climate at the end of the Devonian, with extensive
glaciation, is taken to be the probable cause of the extinction.

Carboniferous
This period extends from about 359.2 2.5 to about 299 0.8 million years ago, a length of
about 60 million years. The period is named after "carbon" or coal, since huge deposits of
coal dating back to this period have been found all over the world. This period is typically
divided into two epochs, the earlier Mississippian, and the later Pennsylvanian.
The dip in temperatures at the end of the Devonian quickly reversed at the start of the
Carboniferous, and for at least the first half of the Carboniferous, the climate was quite warm.
However, about 320 million years ago, there was a sudden precipitous drop in temperature,
the onset of the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation. This point, which is marked by the division
of the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian epochs, is seen in the geological record as a minor
extinction event, which hit the crinoids and ammonites specially hard. For the rest of the
Carboniferous, the climate was much cooler, and shows a record of repeated glaciations.
However, the tropics continued to remain warm and tropical coal-generating forest continued
to flourish.

Carboniferous Coal Forests

The extensive formation of coal from this period is somewhat puzzling. Coal forms when
hydrocarbon material (dead plants and trees) are buried and not decomposed. Over time,
pressure and heat turns them into coal. In modern times, this is not so common, because
various organisms quickly decompose dead organic matter.
There were probably many reasons for coal formation during this period. One is the
development of trees with bark. Bark is composed of lignin, a chemical compound found in
cell walls, which probably first evolved in the Carboniferous. Barked trees were very
common in the Carboniferous, and they contained a lot of bark. Bark to wood ratios as high
as 8:1 were common in trees of this period, and ratios as high as 20:1 have been found for
some trees. This contrasts with ratios of about 1:4 for modern trees, so we can see that trees
in this period had up to 80 times more bark per volume of wood than trees today.
Lignin is toxic, and inhibits the decay of organic material. It is likely that microbes that can
decompose lignin had not evolved at the time. Even today, few organisms other than
Basidiomycitic fungi can digest lignin. It probably evolved to protect the trees from insect

herbivores, which were the dominant herbivores at the time. This was also a time before
effective insectivore animals had developed, so the populations of such insect herbivores
much have been very high.
Another factor may have been the late Carboniferous glaciations, and the consequent fall in
sea levels. This produced huge lowland swamps in Europe and North America, where it is
especially easy for dead vegetation to get buried quickly.
The burial of vast forests and swamplands produced a surplus of oxygen in the atmosphere,
which may have peaked as high as 35% (compared to 21%) today. This led to insect and
amphibian gigantism, since insects specially are size limited by atmospheric oxygen
concentrations, as their respiratory system does not allow for the diffusion of gases very
efficiently at large mass to surface area ratios.
As the continents continued to move closer together, in process of forming Pangaea, the
shallow seas that had separated continents began to shrink. Much of the marine environment
of previous periods had consisted of such shallow seas and extensive shorelines. This had the
result of increasing the amount of dry land available as habitat, at the expense of shrinking
marine environments. The trend was further aggravated during the later Cambrian, as
glaciation locked way water and decreased sea levels. This may have been the reason for the
evolution of land vertebrates, which first became fully terrestrial during the Cambrian.
Land vertebrates such as amphibians were very common in the Carboniferous, and much
more diverse than they are today. Some grew to large sizes, as long as 20 feet, though most
were smaller. The amphibians were partly aquatic, but many fully terrestrial animals also
developed in this period, often with scaly skins to prevent dehydration and protect them. The
development that made terrestrialism possible was the evolution of the amniote egg, with its
several protective membranes, that allowed the eggs to survive and hatch on land.
Amphibians are not amniotes - their eggs require water, so the amphibian lifestyle requires
close association with bodies of water. The amniote egg may have developed as early as 340
million years ago, near the beginning of the Carboniferous, as evidenced by fossils of
Casineria, a small lizard like creature, about 6 inches long. Casineria may have been the first
amniote, and therefore the first known vertebrate to adopt a fully terrestrial lifestyle. It is
sometimes placed in the stem group protosauria (or "first lizards"), which includes some
amphibians as well as early reptiles.
Early in their history, the amniotes split into two branches: the synapsids (proto mammals)
and the sauropsids (proto birds/reptiles). This split happened about 320 million years ago,
probably near the beginning of the Permo-Carboniferous glaciations, and the beginning of the
Pennsylvanian epoch. Hylonomus, the earliest confirmed reptile, dates back to about 315
million years ago. It was about 6-8 inches in size, and probably ate insects and centipedes.
The earliest undisputed synapsid was Archaeothyris, a somewhat larger lizard like creature
(about half a meter in length), dated to about 306 million years ago.
By the end of the Carboniferous, both synapsids and sauropsids had diversified into a number
of groups and spread across the land, possibly in response to the drier climate of the late
Carboniferous.
Insects continued to proliferate during the Carboniferous. The high concentrations of
atmospheric oxygen (35%) led to gigantism, as seen in Meganeura, a giant dragonfly-like

insect with a wingspan of over 2.5 feet. Other groups to emerge included the ancestors of
mayflies, and the ancestors of cockroaches.
The marine environment also greatly diversified during the Cambrian. The foraminifera first
became prominent in the marine fauna. Echinoderms, radiolaria, sponges, brachiopods,
annelids, gastropods and cephalopods were all numerous among marine invertebrates.
Trilobites also existed, but were less common than in earlier periods. Aquatic vertebrates also
diversified, in both freshwater and marine environments. Some were very large, such as the
rhizodonts, which grew up to 20 - 25 feet, making them the largest freshwater fish ever
known.
Sharks had a major evolutionary radiation in the Carboniferous, probably due to the
extinction of the placoderms at the end of the Devonian. Sharks probably took over the
different niches that had been previously occupied by placoderms.
Among land plants, many earlier Devonian lineages continued, but new plants also appeared.
Horsetails and cycads first appeared. Seed ferns and other early gymnosperms continued to
flourish, as did various lycophytes. Towards the end of the Carboniferous, the first conifers
appeared, usually situated away from the water, in higher, drier ground.

Permian
This was the last period of the Paleozoic, and dates from about 299 0.8 to 251 0.5 million
years ago, a duration of about 48 million years. It ends with the Permian-Triassic extinction
event, probably the worst extinction event in the history of life on Earth.
The Permian saw the completion of the supercontinent Pangaea, which reached its maximum
extent about 225 million years ago, though it lasted in some attenuated form for another 100
million years. During the Permian, most of the Earth's land was assembled in a giant Cshaped continent straddling the equator. This assembly of landmasses into one large group
drastically reduced the coast lines, decreasing the available shallow marine habitat.
The middle of the "C" shape was the Tethys Sea, and the remaining globe was covered by a
single large ocean, known as the Panthalassic Ocean. The large continental landmass meant
that the interiors of continents were very arid, and probably large deserts existed.
Temperature fluctuations in the interiors of continents must also have been extreme.
Monsoon conditions (with highly seasonal rainfall) probably prevailed over much of the land.
The Permian started with the ice age at the end of the Carboniferous. The ice age ended
rapidly, and for much of the rest of the Permian, the climate was warm and dry, with
alternating warming and cooling periods. Towards the end, the Permian was probably about
60% hotter than today, due to volcanic activity producing greenhouse gases.
The equatorial regions, specially near the Tethys Sea still contained large amounts of swamp
land. This area is now the southern region of China, where large Permian deposits have been
found. However, further away, conditions were more extreme, and favored the evolution of
conifers. This happened somewhere around the middle of the Permian, and conifers quickly
spread over much of the inland areas. Many modern trees, such as gingkoes and cycads
originated in this period.

Pangaea, about 225 million years ago.

Roaches prospered greatly in the Permian. They were well adapted to the conditions, with an
omnivorous digestive system, a gizzard, and sophisticated mouth parts. About 90% of
Permian insects were roach-like. Flying insects were dominated by huge predatory
dragonflies. Gigantism continued, with species of dragonflies achieving wing spans of over 2
feet. Other important new insect groups that evolved during this period were the beetles and
flies.
Land vertebrates included both synapsids and sauropsids. The early Permian was dominated
by amphibians and pelycosaurs, which were a class of synapsids. The pelycosaurs varied in
size from a few inches up to ten feet and more, eventually giving rise to the therapsids in the
middle Permian. Towards the end of the Permian, a branch of the therapsids known as the
cynodonts evolved, which would later give rise to mammals in the Triassic. Initially, the
sauropsids were not as successful as the synapsids, but towards the end of the Permian, they
gave rise to diapsids, such as archosaurs. The coming end-Permian extinction was to change
matters drastically, with the synapsids losing their dominance, and the descendents of the
archosaurs (dinosaurs, crocodiles, other reptilians) becoming the dominant vertebrates for the
next hundred million years, and more.
The Permian ended with the most catastrophic extinction that life on Earth has ever seen - the
Permian-Triassic extinction event, which happened about 251 million years ago. About 9095% of all marine species and about 70% of all land species became extinct. It's thought that
about 99.5% of all living organisms died during this event, leaving behind only about 0.5% to
populate the earth in the Triassic. Many ancient lineages, which had survived for hundreds of
millions of years, such as trilobites, disappeared after this extinction. Indeed, so many species
died out that instead of enumerating what perished, it will be easier to list what remained, in
the next section on the Triassic.

The cause of the Permian-Triassic extinction is not known. Some of the more popular
hypotheses are:
Volcanism in Siberia

Massive flood basalt eruptions in Siberia which continued for nearly a million years, and
formed what is today known as the Siberian Traps, may have been the cause. The eruptions
may have caused a nuclear winter scenario which lasted for several years, coinciding with
major eruptions. Some of these eruptions produced up to 2000 cubic kilometers of lava, and
there were many of them, over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. By contrast, the
largest eruption in recorded history, the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1812, only produced
about 160 cubic kilometers of ejecta. The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, which wiped out
Pompeii and Herculaneum only produced 4 cubic kilometers of ejecta. The eruption of Thera
in the second millennium BC (which ended the Minoan Civilization) produced about 60
cubic kilometers of ejecta. The aftermath of the Siberian volcanism may have elevated global
temperatures by as much as 5 C due to greenhouse gases, which is an extreme amount if it
happens over a short period.
Deep Sea Methane

This is actually an extension of the Siberian volcanism theory. The rise in temperature caused
by the volcanism (about 5 C) might not be enough to cause such a severe extinction as this,
but it might be enough to warm the oceans sufficiently to melt the methane hydrate reservoirs
at the bottom of the oceans. Methane is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, and a
massive release of methane would lead to a severe greenhouse effect. This theory is
supported by the finding of increased carbon-12 levels in the middle layers of deposits from
the end-Permian event, and the particular sequence of extinctions (land based extinctions,
followed by marine extinctions, followed by more land based extinctions).
Ocean Venting of Hydrogen Sulfide

The deep sea is a relatively anoxic zone, and periodically, it loses almost all of its oxygen. At
such times, bacteria produce large amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which accumulates in the
depths. This hydrogen sulfide can be released suddenly into the atmosphere. This can cause
extinctions in several ways. Hydrogen sulfide itself is toxic to aerobic organisms. Once in the
atmosphere, it is rapidly oxidized, depleting oxygen in the process, leading to lowered levels
of oxygen in the atmosphere. Finally, it can destroy the ozone layers, exposing the Earth to
the Sun's ultraviolet radiation.
Impact Event

The Wilkes Land crater in the Antarctica has been dated to roughly 100 - 500 million years
old. Since this is roughly (very roughly!) the period of the end-Permian extinction, some
people have wondered if there might be a relationship. This theory seems somewhat weak,
because the amount of iridium and fractured quartz at the boundary is significantly smaller
than the amount found at the extinction event 65 million years ago (when the dinosaurs died).
Since the end-Permian extinction was by far the larger extinction event, one would expect
more, not less signs of the impact event compared to the later extinction event. However,
there can be doubts, since the end-Permian is much older, and the signs of impact are
probably more obliterated by time. The crater is certainly larger (about 500 km) than the one

associated with the more recent extinction (Chicxulub crater, 180 km), which is expected. But
there are other problems with the theory as well, such as fossils in Greenland, which show
that the extinction event lasted nearly 80,000 years, far too long to be caused by a single
catastrophic event such as an asteroid.
Most scientists believe that the extinction was caused by a combination of some of the
theories listed above, together with ongoing effects such as the shrinking of coastlines due to
the formation of Pangaea, the change in climate, etc. There are other, more speculative
theories as well, such as a nearby supernova in the Milky Way.
Sumber : http://geology.answers.com/fossils/life-in-the-phanerozoic-eon
Geology is the study of the Earth. It examines how the Earth's structures formed, changed,
and made it possible to support life. Sometimes deep in the earth, geologists find fossils,
petrified remains of creature that once existed long ago. Geologists believe that the Earth is
4.5 billion-years-old, and because of great length of time, scientist use a time scale that
divides the Earth's history into four great eons: Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic, and
Phanerozoic. Each eon is then further divided into eras, and each era is divided into periods.

Phanerozoic Eon
The Phanerozoic Eon consists of three eras: Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. This eon
began 542 million years ago and continues to the present day. It was during this time that
multi-cellular life began to flourish on the Earth. All of the planet's creatures, from humans to
wooly mammoths to Tyrannosaurus Rex, lived during the Phanerozoic Eon. All of the
preceding four billion years of history led up to the explosion of life seen in this eon.

Phanerozoic and Proterozoic Border

The Proterozoic Eon ran from 2.5 billion years ago to 542 million years ago. During this
time, the Earth's atmosphere became able to support oxygen. Single-cell life started during
the Phanerozoic, and towards the end of the age soft-shell multi-cellular organisms like those
found in the Francevillian Group Fossils formed. The traditional boundary between the two
eons is when trilobites and reef-building animals start to appear. After this point, life on Earth
would become increasingly complex.

Paleozoic Era
The first part of the Phanerozoic Eon consists of the Paleozoic Era. It ran from 542 million
years ago to 252 million years ago. This era is further subdivided into six different periods.
Fossils remain mostly aquatic until the middle of the Paleozoic, revealing different types of
fish and shellfish. Insects, amphibians, and reptiles all began to evolve during the latter part
of the Paleozoic. This era ended with the greatest mass extinction event ever, which killed up
to 96 percent of all aquatic life.

Mesozoic Era

The Mesozoic Era is the second part of the Phanerozoic Eon. It ran from 252 million years
ago until 66 million years ago. This was the time of the dinosaurs, which seemed to flourish
after the extinction event that ended the Paleozoic Era wiped out most of the life on Earth.
The Mesozoic Era consists of three time periods: Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. The
fossil record reveals increasingly complex life forms up until the end of this era due to
another mass extinction.

Cenozoic Era
The Cenozoic Era is the final part of the Phanerozoic Eon. It runs from 66 million years ago
up to the current day. The Cenozoic consists of three major time periods separated into
millions of years. The fossil record reveals that this is the time when mammals began to
evolve in new ways after the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Mammals were also able to
evolve when the climate rapidly changed, as the fossil record proves during the Ice Ages.
The Phanerozoic Eon is the current eon on Earth. It began at the time when life began to
flourish on the Earth. It continued through the great extinctions that brought about the end of
the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras. The fossil record reveals the great variation of all the life
that once lived upon the Earth.

Sumber : http://essayweb.net/geology/quicknotes/carboncycle.shtml
Carbon Cycle
Carbon is the 4th most abundant element in the universe. Is it essential to all life as we know
it. All living organisms contain carbon. Additionally, carbon is present in rocks, dissolved in
rivers, lakes and oceans, and in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
The movement of carbon across these reservoirs is the carbon cycle. Life has a significant
role in the carbon cycle. Green plants and bacteria use atmospheric carbon dioxide (plus
some dissolved carbonates in the case of aquatic organisms) to create the molecules of life carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Organisms higher up in the food chain eat these plants or
other animals.
Plants and animals respire, that is, burn fuel in order to live. The products of respiration
include carbon dioxide, which is released into the atmosphere. When organisms die, their
remains decompose, also releasing carbon back into the atmosphere and the soil.
In addition to the biological turnover of carbon, the Earth itself has a carbon cycle, with
carbon being continually released from carbon sources and removed by carbon sinks. The
geological carbon cycle works over millions of years, whereas the biological carbon cycle
works over periods from days to a few thousands of years.

The image above shows the carbon cycle. The green numbers next to each label represent the
carbon reservoirs, in units of billions of tons (gigatons). For example, the atmosphere
contains about 750 gigatons of carbon, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide, but also trace
amounts of other gases, such as methane. The soil contains about 1580 gigatons, in the form
of organic matter, bacteria, etc. Fossil fuel reservoirs hold about 4000 gigatons.
As can be seen, the bulk of the carbon is in the deep ocean, around 38,100 gigatons. The
numbers in red show the carbon fluxes (per year) between different carbon pools. The
numbers are also in gigatons.

Geological Carbon Cycle

This occurs over millions of years. Rain washes atmospheric carbon dioxide down to the soil
and the sea. Carbon dioxide in the soil exists as carbonic acid, which combines with minerals
in the soil to form carbonates - a process known as weathering. Over time, these carbonates
are eroded and transported by wind and water back to the sea. Carbonates in the oceans
eventually sink to the bottom; therefore the oceans are a net carbon dioxide sink.
Plate tectonics drives the sea floor deep underground at the subduction zones. As the sea floor
gets buried deeper, it heats up and eventually releases the carbon dioxide, which makes its
way back to the surface through volcanoes, hotsprings, or gradual seeps.
Plate tectonics also affects the land. Deeply buried carbonate rocks can be pushed upwards,
exposing them on the surface. This is happening in the Himalayas, which contain
sedimentary carbonate rich rocks which were formed at the bottom of some ancient ocean.
Once at the surface, the rocks are once again exposed to weathering and erosion.
In the end, the fate of all carbon leaving the atmosphere is to enter the sea, and become
incorporated in the sea floor. This sea floor then releases its carbon back to the atmosphere
when it is subducted deep enough beneath the crust. But during the course of this cycle, the
various reservoirs can hold carbon for hundreds of millions of years.

Biological Carbon Cycle

Biology provides a fast turnover cycle superimposed on the geological carbon cycle. The two
biolgical processes - photosynthesis and respiration, together are responsible for carbon
turnover at a 1000 times faster rate than the entire geological cycle. These processes happen
fast enough that seasonal variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide can easily be detected. For
example, in the higher latitudes, sunlight is quite seasonal, with shorter days during the
winter. Photosynthesis is therefore greatly reduced during winters, while respiration
continues pretty much unhindered. So there is a marked seasonal cycle with carbon dioxide
levels being higher in winters than they are in the summers.
In marine environments, there is an additional factor to consider. Many marine organisms
(phytoplankton) use carbon to make shells. These shells sink to floor when the organisms die,
and the sediment on the ocean floor can be compacted over time to form limestone. Other
organic matter can also be buried on the ocean floor, and under certain conditions turn into
hydrocarbons such as coal and gas. The oceans can therefore serve as carbon sinks over
geological time scales. Eventually, of course, all this carbon will also make its way to the
surface due to plate tectonics. But relatively stable reservoirs can last for hundreds of millions
of years.

Human Activity
For most of human history, we had no net impact on atmospheric carbon. Like any other form
of life, our contribution to the carbon reservoir was our bodies, and our carbon production
consisted of whatever carbon dioxide we breathed out. Whatever we burned as fuel through
cooking fires and heating our homes was too small to make any significant difference.
Things started changing with the beginning of industrialization around 1850. Two things
happened: the population of humans increased dramatically, and the per capita production of

carbon increased as well due to the fuel requirements of industrialization. This dramatically
increased the production of carbon dioxide. Coal and oil have been carbon sinks for hundreds
of millions of years. The carbon in fossil fuels was sequestered (that is, not in the atmosphere
and not part of the carbon cycle) during this period. This carbon is now being released into
the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Sumber : http://essayweb.net/geology/quicknotes/carbonexcursion.shtml

Carbon Excursions
Carbon occurs in different isotopes, including 12C, 13C and 14C. The first two are nonradioactive, while 14C is radioactive and decays into 14N, with a half life of 5730 years.
Because of the short half life, any 14C present at the beginning of the Earth has long since
disappeared, and it would not even exist today, if there were not a regenerating mechanism
that constantly produces a small amount due to the cosmic ray bombardment of the upper
atmosphere. Even so, the amounts of 14C are so small that we can ignore it for most purposes,
unless we are looking specifically for it (e.g., radiocarbon dating).
Of the other two isotopes, about 99% of the carbon in the universe (and Earth) is 12C, while
the remaining 1% is 13C. Although isotopes are considered to be identical so far as their
chemistry goes, it so happens that the enzymes involved in photosynthesis have a slightly
greater affinity for 12C than 13C. For this reason, any biogenic carbon (carbon that is part of a
living organism or its remains) is slightly lighter than carbon that is not biogenic. The
remaining, non-biogenic carbon, by contrast is isotopically heavy, because more of the lighter
12
C has been extracted by living organisms from it than the heavier 13C.
Remember that as biological material does not stay put, it is constantly recycled through the
carbon cycle. So when an organism dies, unless its remains are sequestered in some way (as
in a fossil) and prevented from mixing with its surroundings, biogenic carbon will disperse
into the environment and gradually assume the same isotope ratios as inorganic carbon.
Mass spectrometry can easily determine very small variations in the 12C : 13C ratio, and these
ratios are commonly used on inorganic carbon. A positive 13C excursion happens when a lot
of 12C is locked up in biological material, and as a result the rest of the carbon (such as
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) becomes heavy with 13C. There is often great debate
regarding the reasons for such excursions, but the fact that the excursion happened can be
easily measured with a high degree of repeatability.

Figure showing 13C excursions during the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic. The arrows indicate
excursions that occurred during the two major glaciations of the Cryogenian period of the
Neoproterozoic - the Sturtian and Marinoan glaciations. Adapted from Bartley and Kah,
2004.
The figure shows the carbon ratios during the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic eons. The arrows
indicate excursions that took place during the Cryogenian period, and are associated with two
major glaciations that have been implicated in the "snowball Earth" scenario.
The cause for these excursions is a matter of intense debate. The carbon cycle is complex
even today, and how it worked in the distant past is a matter of conjecture. Many attempts
have been made to relate it to geological events such as the snowball Earth (when in many
ways, transfer of material between different parts of the Earth, such as between continents
and oceans) was greatly impeded, or volcanism accompanying the end of the glaciations,
when large amounts of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere. However, the data
doesn't provide a perfect fit to any of these explanations, and investigations continue.
Note that the end of the Neoproterozoic and the early Phanerozoic are a period of great
instability in this history, with carbon ratios constantly rising and falling. This record is
difficult to interpret.

Sumber :
http://www.briangwilliams.us/carbon-cycle-2/modelingthe-phanerozoic-carbon-cycle.html
Modeling the Phanerozoic Carbon Cycle
Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:03:18 | The Carbon Cycle
Together the carbonate-silicate and organic long-term subcycles play the dominant role in
controlling the levels of atmospheric CO2 and O2 over millions to billions of years. In this
book I show how these subcycles have operated only over the past 550 million years, the
Phanerozoic eon. The Phanerozoic is chosen because of the abundance of critical data such as
abundant multicellular body fossils, relatively noncontroversial pa-leogeographic
reconstructions, and relatively agreed-upon tectonic and climatic histories. Such a situation is
not available for the Precambrian. The plethora of Phanerozoic geological, biological, and
climatic data are extremely useful in trying to recreate the history of the carbon cycle. This
will be done in the present book. The reader is referred to the books by Holland (1978, 1984)
for discussion of the carbon cycle before the Phanerozoic.
All Phanerozoic carbon cycle models to date use analogous formulations for the mass balance
of carbon added to and from the Phanerozic rock record (e.g., Budyko and Ronov, 1979;
Walker et al., 1981; Berner et al, 1983; Garrels and Lerman, 1984; Berner, 1991, 1994;
Kump and Arthur, 1997; Francois and Godderis, 1998; Tajika, 1998, Berner and Kothavala,
2001; Wallmann, 2001; Kashiwagi and Shikazono, 2003; Bergman et al., 2003; Mackenzie et
al., 2003). The simplest approach to carbon mass balance modeling is to introduce the
concept of the "surficial system" (Berner, 1994, 1999) consisting of the oceans + atmosphere

+ biosphere + soils (the reservoirs of the short-term cycle). A generalized mass balance
expression for the surficial system is:
where
Mc = mass of carbon in the surficial system
Fwc = carbon flux from weathering of Ca and Mg carbonates
Fwg = carbon flux from weathering of sedimentary organic matter Fmc = degassing flux
from volcanism, metamorphism, and diagenesis of carbonates Fmg = degassing flux from
volcanism, metamorphism and diagenesis of organic matter Fbc = burial flux of carbonate-C
in sediments Fbg = burial flux of organic-C in sediments.
An additional mass balance expression for 13C involving the stable isotopes of carbon has
been found to be of great help in doing long-term carbon cycle modeling:
+ 8mgFmg 8bcFbc 8bgFbg where 8 = [(13C/12C) / (13C/12C)stnd - 1] 1000. and stnd
represents a reference standard. Equations (1.10) and (1.11), when combined with
assumptions about weathering, burial and degassing, can be used to calculate the various
carbon fluxes as a function of time. More complicated expressions have been used for carbon
mass balance in some models where the surficial system is broken up into its parts and
separate mass balance expression are used for carbon in the atmosphere, biosphere, and
ocean. However, the simpler approach of equations (1.10) and (1.11) will be emphasized in
the present book. By lumping the atmosphere, oceans, life and soils together, processes
involved in the short-term carbon cycle are avoided in the modeling, and the use of steadystate becomes possible. A diagrammatic presentation of this approach is shown in figure 1.3.
The weathering and degassing fluxes of carbon integrated over millions of years are much
larger than the amount of carbon that can be stored in the surficial system (table 1.1). Adding
excessive dissolved calcium and bicarbonate to the oceans eventually would result in the
global inorganic precipitation of CaCO3. (Adding too little calcium and bicarbonate would
result eventually in an acid ocean and the inability to ever form limestones.) The area of land
can hold just so much biomass and soil carbon. Too much CO2 in the atmosphere leads to
excessive warming due to the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Because of the inability to store
much carbon in the surficial system, over millions of years one can assume that the carbon
loss fluxes, due to organic carbon burial and Ca and Mg silicate weathering followed by Ca
and Mg carbonate burial, are essentially balanced by degassing fluxes from thermal carbonate
decomposition and organic matter oxidation (Berner, 1991, 1994; Tajika, 1998). In other
words, there is a quasi steady state such that:

Figure 1.3. Modeling diagram for the long-term carbon cycle. Fwc = carbon flux from
weathering of Ca and Mg carbonates; Fwg = carbon flux from weathering of sedimentary
organic matter; Fmc = degassing flux from volcanism, metamorphism, and diagenesis of
carbonates; Fmg = degassing flux from volcanism, metamorphism, and diagenesis of organic
matter; Fbc = burial flux of carbonate-C in sediments; Fbg = burial flux or organic-C in
sediments.
Figure 1.3. Modeling diagram for the long-term carbon cycle. Fwc = carbon flux from
weathering of Ca and Mg carbonates; Fwg = carbon flux from weathering of sedimentary
organic matter; Fmc = degassing flux from volcanism, metamorphism, and diagenesis of
carbonates; Fmg = degassing flux from volcanism, metamorphism, and diagenesis of organic
matter; Fbc = burial flux of carbonate-C in sediments; Fbg = burial flux or organic-C in
sediments.
This greatly simplifies theoretical modeling of the long-term carbon cycle. It means that the
sum of input fluxes to the surficial system are essentially equal to the sum of all output
fluxes. For each million-year time step, although input and output fluxes of carbon to the
surficial system may change, they quickly readjust during the time step to a new steady state,
This is known as the quasistatic approximation. Non-steady-state modeling (Sundquist, 1991)
has shown that perturbations from surficial system steady state, for the long-term carbon
cycle, cannot persist for more than about 500,000 years.
At steady state, the CO2 uptake flux to form HCO3- accompanying the weathering of Ca and
Mg silicates Fwsi is determined from the mass balance expression for bicarbonate (reactions
1.1, 1.2, and 1.6):
Fbc - Fwc represents the carbonate that is formed only from the weathering of Ca and Mg
silicates, as opposed to that formed from both Ca and Mg silicate and carbonate weathering
(Fbc). Equation (1.13) illustrates the necessity of knowing the rate of carbonate weathering
(Fwc) in calculating the rate of silicate weathering.
In GEOCARB (Berner, 1991, 1994; Berner and Kothavala, 2001) and similar modeling (e.g.,
Kump and Arthur, 1997; Tajika, 1998; Wallmann, 2001) the weathering and degassing
fluxes, Fwc, Fwg, Fmc, Fmg are expanded in terms of nondimensional parameters
representing how a variety of processes affect rates of weathering and degassing. The
parameters are multiplied by present fluxes to obtain ancient fluxes. These non-dimensional
parameters are discussed in the next three chapters and provide a window into the inner

workings of the long-term Phanerozoic carbon cycle. The last two chapters show how
calculations based on long-term carbon cycle modeling can be used to estimate the Phanerozoic evolution of atmospheric CO2 and O2. The modeling results are then compared to
independent estimates of paleo-CO2 and O2 to give some idea of the accuracy and
deficiencies of the modeling.
Sumber : http://paleontology.wikia.com/wiki/Phanerozoic
The Phanerozoic (occasionally Phanaerozoic) Eon is the period of geologic time during
which abundant animal life has existed. It covers roughly 545 million years and goes back to
the time when diverse hard-shelled animals first appeared. The Phanerozoic eon is still
ongoing. Its name derives from the Greek meaning visible life, referring to the large size of
organisms since the Cambrian explosion. The time previous to the start of the Phanerozoic is
called Precambrian (now divided into the Hadean, Archaean and Proterozoic eons). The exact
time of the boundary between the Phanerozoic and the Precambrian is slightly uncertain. In
the 19th Century, the boundary was set at the first abundant metazoan fossils. But several
hundred taxa of Precambrian metazoa have been identified since systematic study of those
forms started in the 1950s. Most geologists and paleontologists would probably set the
Precambrian-Phanerozoic boundary either at the classic point where the first trilobites and
archaeocyatha appear; at the first appearance of a complex feeding burrow called
Trichophycus pedum; or at the first appearance of a group of small, generally disarticulated,
armored forms termed 'the small shelly fauna'. The three different dividing points are within a
few million years of each other.
The Phanerozoic is divided into three eras Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. In the
older literature, the term Phanerozoic is generally used as a label for the time period of
interest to paleontologists. The term seems to be falling into disuse in more modern literature.
The time span of the Phanerozoic includes the rapid emergence of a number of animal phyla;
the evolution of these phyla into diverse forms; the emergence of terrestrial plants; the
development of complex plants; the evolution of fish; the emergence of terrestrial animals;
and the development of modern faunas. During the period covered, continents drifted about,
eventually collected into a single landmass known as Pangea and then split up into the current
continental landmasses.