3 min read 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 ...

The world may need to start thinking differently about plants ... about the evolution of land plants. Found in rock samples retrieved in Australia more than 60 years ago, the microfossils dating to ...

“It extends the fossil record of [early land plants] by something like 20 million years. . . . Also, potentially [the fossils] provide a sort of intermediate between the Cambrian record and the later ...

The Paleozoic era's Silurian period saw animals and plants finally emerge on land. But first there was a period of biological regrouping following the disastrous climax to the Ordovician.