Paleozoic
541 Ma – 252 Ma
The Paleozoic — “ancient life” — runs from 541 to 252 million years ago. It opens with the Cambrian explosion of animal body plans and closes with the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history. Life colonized the land, fish gave rise to amphibians, vast coal forests grew, and the continents converged into the supercontinent Pangaea.
View the Paleozoic on the globe →
Highlights
- The Cambrian explosion of animal diversity
- Plants and animals first colonize the land
- Carboniferous coal swamps and giant arthropods
- The end-Permian extinction, the largest known
Periods of the Paleozoic
- Cambrian — 541 Ma – 485.4 Ma
- Ordovician — 485.4 Ma – 443.8 Ma
- Silurian — 443.8 Ma – 419.2 Ma
- Devonian — 419.2 Ma – 358.9 Ma
- Carboniferous — 358.9 Ma – 298.9 Ma
- Permian — 298.9 Ma – 252 Ma