Paleozoic
Paleozoic means ancient life. Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon.
There are seven different periods in the Paleozoic era:
- Cambrian
- Ordovician
- Silurian
- Devonian
- Mississippian
- Carboniferous
- Permian
The Paleozoic starts shortly after the breakup of a supercontinent called Pannotia and at the end of the era, the continents gathered together into a supercontinent called Pangea (approximately 300 million years). The Paleozoic is bracketed by two of the most important events in the history of animal life. At its beginning, multicelled animals underwent a dramatic "explosion" in diversity, and almost all living animal phyla appeared within a few millions of years. At the other end of the Paleozoic, the largest mass extinction in history wiped out approximately 90% of all marine animal species. [1]