When did the Ordovician era start and end?

When did the Ordovician era start and end?

485.4 (+/- 1.9) million years ago – 443.8 (+/- 1.5) million years ago
Ordovician/Occurred

What era was the Ordovician period in?

Paleozoic
Ordovician/Era

Learn more about the time period that took place 488 to 443 million years ago. During the Ordovician period, part of the Paleozoic era, a rich variety of marine life flourished in the vast seas and the first primitive plants began to appear on land—before the second largest mass extinction of all time ended the period.

How long did the Ordovician period last?

The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Mya.

How did Ordovician Period End?

443.8 (+/- 1.5) million years ago
Ordovician/Ended

What major event happened in Ordovician?

Significant Ordovician events. Beginning in the Ordovician Period, a series of plate collisions resulted in Laurentia, Siberia, and Baltica becoming assembled into the continents of Laurussia by the Devonian and Laurasia by the Pennsylvanian (also see Cambrian Period).

What time period was 450 million years ago?

450 million years ago Late Ordovician. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cambrian period, although the end of the period was marked by the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event.

What continents were in the Ordovician period?

The Ordovician began about 490 million years ago and lasted for about 47 million years. Gondwana was a huge supercontinent during the Ordovician Period. It contained the modern continents of Australia, Africa, Southern Europe, Antarctica and South America.

What are the 5 mass extinctions?

Top Five Extinctions

• Ordovician-silurian Extinction: 440 million years ago.
• Devonian Extinction: 365 million years ago.
• Permian-triassic Extinction: 250 million years ago.
• Triassic-jurassic Extinction: 210 million years ago.
• Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction: 65 Million Years Ago.

What caused the mass extinction 374 million years ago?

The causes of these extinctions are unclear. Leading hypotheses include changes in sea level and ocean anoxia, possibly triggered by global cooling or oceanic volcanism. The impact of a comet or another extraterrestrial body has also been suggested, such as the Siljan Ring event in Sweden.

What did Earth look like when dinosaurs were on it?

The Earth had heavy vegetation near costs, lakes, and rivers, but desert in its interior. During the Jurassic Period, the continents gradually broke apart. The world was warm, moist, and full of green plants. During the Cretaceous Period, most of the continents had separated.

What started and ended the Ordovician period?

The Ordovician period was started by an extinction called the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction which lasted about 44.6 million years, and ended with a mass extinction event known as the Ordovician- Silurian extinction event that wiped out approximately 60% of all the marine genera.

How did the Ordovician period get its name?

The Ordovician period (500 to 440 million years ago) comes after the Cambrian in the early Paleozoic era. The period is named for a Celtic tribe named the Ordovices who once lived in the area of Wales (in Britain) where the rocks were first studied.

When did the Ordovician period start?

Ordovician Period, in geologic time, the second period of the Paleozoic Era . It began 485.4 million years ago, following the Cambrian Period , and ended 443.8 million years ago, when the Silurian Period began.

What were the dominant life forms in the Ordovician period?

Ordovician seas were filled with a diverse assemblage of invertebrates, dominated by brachiopods (lamp shells), bryozoans (moss animals), trilobites, mollusks, echinoderms (a group of spiny-skinned marine invertebrates), and graptolites (small, colonial, planktonic animals).