Earth History

Geography 106 LRS

Doug Fischer
 Introduction

– Overview of geologic history

• Plate positions over time
• Major biogeographic events
 Earth’s tectonic history
• Gondwanaland
– Southern continents
– Formed 650mya Precambrian
• Laurasia – Northern Continents
– Most converged in Devonian 400mya as “old
sandstone continent”
• Formation of Pangaea
– Late Permian ~ 275 mya
 Breakup of Pangaea
• Started 180 mya (early Jurassic)
– Prior to breakup, great mixing of biota
– However, regionalization did still occur as it
does on (smaller) continents today
 Breakup of Laurasia
• Separated Europe & N. America 100 mya
• Beringia rejoined them 75 mya
• Intermittent connection via Greenland &
Beringia through Tertiary
 Breakup of Gondwanaland
• 180-160mya Gondwanaland started to split
– Mesozoic (Triassic/Jurassic)
• Mostly finished by 90 mya

152 mya 94 mya

 Central America and Antilles
• Caribbean Plate was sandwiched between
N&S America between 80 and 20 mya
• Formed ring of islands
• Landbridge closed
~ 3.5 mya
– Great American
Interchange

14 mya
 Biogeographic consequences
of plate tectonics
• Fragmentation and dispersal of ancestral
biota (vicariance)
• Changing barriers and coridors
– biotic interchange
• Speciation and extinction
– changing physical and biological conditions
Tour of Geologic History
 The geologic
time scale
• Phanerozoic starts
with Cambrian
explosion of
species with hard
body parts
– (Some multi-
cellular algae and
animals lived at
the end of the
Precambrian)
Paleozoic
Paleozoic
 Cambrian
• Animals with hard-shells appeared in
great numbers for the first time
• The continents were flooded by shallow
seas.
• The supercontinent of Gondwana had just
formed and was located near the South Pole.
 Ordivician
• ancient oceans separated the barren
continents of Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia and
Gondwana.
• The end of the Ordovician was one of the
coldest times in Earth history. Ice covered
much of the southern region of Gondwana.
 Silurian
• Laurentia collides with Baltica closing the
northen branch of the Iapetus Ocean and
forming the "Old Red Sandstone" continent.
• Coral reefs expand and land plants begin to
colonize the barren continents.
• Photosynthetic sticks on mudflats
 Devonian
• By the Devonian the early Paleozoic oceans
were closing, forming a "pre-Pangea".
• Freshwater fish were able to migrate from
the southern hemisphere continents to North
America and Europe.
• Evolution of wood! Forests grew for the
first time in the equatorial regions of Artic
Canada.
 Early Carboniferous
• During the Early Carboniferous the
Paleozoic oceans between Euramerica and
Gondwana began to close, forming the
Appalachian and Variscan mountains.
• An ice cap grew at the South Pole
• Four-legged vertebrates evolved in the coal
swamps near the Equator (tree ferns, tree-
horsetails, tree club-mosses).
 Late Carboniferous
• By the Late Carboniferous the continents that
make up modern North America and Europe had
collided with the southern continents of
Gondwana to form the western half of Pangea.
• Ice covered much of the southern hemisphere
• Vast coal swamps formed along the equator (seed
ferns, early conifers, and mosses).
 Permian
• Vast deserts covered western Pangea during the
Permian as reptiles spread across the face of the
supercontinent.
• Cycads, ginkgos appear. Glossopteris ferns spread
across southern continents
• 99% of all life perished during the extinction
event that marked the end of the Paleozoic Era.
• Massive erosion due to devegetation of continents
 Permo-Triassic Boundary
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/palaeof
http://sens-de-la-vie.com/Images- iles/triassic/triextict.htm dok/doomsday_impact_asteroide_01.jpg

• “The Great Dying” - Siberian Traps, marine CO2

venting, asteroid impact - multiple stressors likely
Permian over ~100kya to 2mya
• Synapsids (dinosaur ancestors) nearly wiped out
• 90%+ of all known species, 80%+ of all known
genera extinct
• Massive reorganization of marine ecosystems -
50:50 dominance of encrusting ecosystems changed
Triassic to 1:3 favoring more complex ecosystems
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15885653/
Mesozoic
Mesozoic
 Triassic
• The supercontinent of Pangea, mostly
assembled by the Triassic, allowed land
animals to migrate from the South Pole to
the North Pole.
• Life began to rediversify after the great
Permo-Triassic extinction.
• Warm-water faunas spread across Tethys.
 Jurassic
• By the Early Jurassic, south-central Asia
had assembled.
• A wide Tethys ocean separated the northern
continents from Gondwana.
• Though Pangea was intact, the first
rumblings of continental break up could be
heard.
 Late Jurassic
• The supercontinent of Pangea began to
break apart in the Middle Jurassic.
• In the Late Jurassic the Central Atlantic
Ocean was a narrow ocean separating
Africa from eastern North America.
• Eastern Gondwana had begun to separate
form Western Gondwana.
• First evidence of angiosperms
 Cretaceous
• During the Cretaceous the South Atlantic Ocean
opened.
• India separated from Madagascar and raced
northward on a collision course with Eurasia.
• Notice that North America was connected to
Europe, and that Australia was still joined to
Antarctica.
• Angiosperms begin to diversify rapidly, ginkgos
and cycads decline
 K/T extinction
• The bull's eye marks the location of the
Chicxulub impact site.
• By the Late Cretaceous the oceans had
widened, and India approached the
southern margin of Asia.
• Massive eruptions of Deccan Traps
 Creatceous–
Tertiary
Boundary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image: http://images.forbestraveler.com/media/photos/i
Impact_event.jpg nspirations/2007/08/volcano-01-g.jpg

• “The Great Dying” - Deccan Traps, marine

CO2 venting, asteroid impact - multiple
stressors likely over ~100kya to 1mya
• Dinosaurs wiped out - except for birds
• 75%+ of all known species, 50%+ of all
known genera extinct

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/mass-extinction.html
Cenozoic
 Alternating ice ages and interglacials
Drying led to expansion of grasslands
Cenozoic and huge herds of grazers

Warm period - first

extensive grasslands
and kelp forests

First elephants with

trunks, early horses,
first appearance of
many grasses
Hyaenodon horridus, a
large carnivorous mammal

Oldest known fossils of modern orders of

mammals, all <20 lbs
 Eocene
• 50 - 55 million years ago India began to
collide with Asia forming the Tibetan
plateau and Himalayas.
• Australia, which was attached to Antarctica,
began to move rapidly northward.
 Miocene
• 20 million years ago, Antarctica was coverd
by ice and the northern continents were
cooling rapidly.
• The world has taken on a "modern" look,
but notice that Florida and parts of Asia
were flooded by the sea.
 Pleistocene
• When the Earth is in its "Ice House" climate
mode, there is ice at the poles. The polar ice
sheet expands and contacts because of
variations in the Earth's orbit (Milankovitch
cycles).
• The last expansion of the polar ice sheets
took place about 18,000 years ago.
 Holocene
• We are entering a new phase of continental
collision that will ultimately result in the
formation of a new Pangea supercontinent
in the future.
• Global climate is warming because we are
leaving an Ice Age and because we are
adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
 50 my in the future?
• If we continue present-day plate motions the
Atlantic will widen, Africa will collide with
Europe closing the Mediterranean, Australia
will collide with S.E. Asia, and California
will slide northward up the coast to Alaska.
 Mass Extinctions

• Species continually
go extinct

• Five really BIG mass

All genera
extinctions in the last “Well-defined genera
Trend line
540 million years “Big five” mass extinctions
Other mass extinctions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
 Mass
Extinctions
• Current extinction
rate is 1000 times
higher than usual
• Modern mass
extinction will
rank with the five
biggest
• Modern mass
extinction,
expected to wipe
out more than The Golden Toad of Costa Rica, extinct
since around 1989. Its disappearance has
50% of Earth’s been attributed to climate change.
species by 2100…

Dodo and 2000+ other bird species extinct since

1500 AD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction_event)
 Tour of Geologic history
• Sponsored by the Paleomap Project
– http://www.scotese.com/
• Additional information available from
– UC Museum of Paleontology
• http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu
• Click on “Discover the History of Life”
– http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/Ge
ologictime.html