Online exhibits : Geologic time scaleThe Paleozoic EraThe 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. The causes of both these events are still not fully understood and the subject of much research and controversy. Roughly halfway in between, animals, fungi, and plants colonized the land, the insects took to the air, and the limestone shown in the photo at right was deposited near Burlington, Missouri.The Paleozoic took up over half — approximately 300 million years (542 mya to 251 mya)* — of the Phanerozoic. During the Paleozoic there were six major continental land masses; each of these consisted of different parts of the modern continents. For instance, at the beginning of the Paleozoic, today's western coast of North America ran east-west along the equator, while Africa was at the South Pole. These Paleozoic continents experienced tremendous mountain building along their margins, and numerous incursions and retreats of shallow seas across their interiors. Large limestone outcrops, like the one pictured here, are evidence of these periodic incursions of continental seas. The Paleozoic Era is bracketed by the times of global super-continents. The era opened with the breakup of the world-continent Pannotia and closed with the formation of Pangea, as the Earth's continents came together once again.Many Paleozoic rocks are economically important. For example, much of the limestone quarried for building and industrial purposes, as well as the coal deposits of western Europe and the eastern United States, were formed during the Paleozoic.The Paleozoic is divided into six periods: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous (in the U.S., this is divided into the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian Periods), and Permian. Most of these names derive from locations where rocks of these ages were first studied. Cambria was the Latin name for Wales, and the Ordovices and Silures were two Welsh Celtic tribes. The Devonian is named for Devonshire, England. The Mississippian is named for the upper Mississippi River valley, not the state of Mississippi, which has very few rocks of this age; however, the Pennsylvanian is named for the state of Pennsylvania. The Permian was described from rocks in the region of Perm, a town in the Ural Mountains of Russia. The exception to this naming convention is the Carboniferous; its name means "coal-bearing," and this is a time when extensive coal beds were formed around the world
