320
Carboniferous
Pennsylvanian
Great swamps develop (future
coal deposits
-Reptiles develop from
amphibians
-Flying insects appear
354 Mississippian
Much of North America is under
water
-First seed plants appear
-Sea life flourishes including
coral, brachiopods, blastoids, and
bryozoa
417 Devonian
Acadian Orogeny – SC
metamorphism
-Dominant animals: fish
-Amphibians, evergreens and
ferns appear
443 Silurian Extensive erosion
First land plants appear and land
animals follow
490 Ordovician
-Beginning of the construction of
South Carolina
-Great extinction due to growth of
ice caps including in what is now
northern Africa
-First animals with bones appear
-Dominant animals: marine
invertebrates including corals and
trilobites
540 Cambrian
S.C. near the equator; island arc
continues to move toward North
America
-Explosion of life
-All existing phyla came into
being here
-Life forms in warm seas as
oxygen levels rose enough to
support life
-Dominant animals: trilobites and
brachiopods
4600
Precambrian
(Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic Ages)
Earth takes 10 million years to
cool: initial atmosphere escapes
into space (H&He) and the core
forms (Fe&Ni)
Volcanic outgassing of water and
carbon dioxide occurred for
millions of years, helping to build
atmosphere and then oceans
At 3 billion years ago, banded
iron formation rocks appear due
to rising oxygen levels in the
atmosphere and sea
No life possible as the Earth
initially forms 4.6 billion years
ago.
Simple, single-celled forms of life
appear 3.8 billion years ago.
They will become more complex
and successful over the next 3
billion years: Prokaryotes then
Eukaryotes
Cyanobacteria begins producing
free oxygen (photosynthesis)
Paleozoic
“Age of
Invertebrates”
Modified after Carolina Rocks, contributed by J. Westmoreland
7
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