History of the Earth Part 2: Phanerozoic Eon – Paleozoic Era

We just cruised through the Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic eons. That brings us all the way to the Phanerozoic eon, which is the one we are still living in today. This is split up into the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic eras, so let's hit these eras one at a time, since so much happened in each one. First up, the Paleozoic era!

Script by Jared Matteucci

Check out "Is This Wi-Fi Organic?", my book on disarming pseudoscience!

[jessicadeines]

My 6 year old son and I watch this together. He is an autistic savant and has shown immense ability in math and science. Thank you so much for these they generated great conversations between us about how amazing the earth is and how we got here.

[Incred_Canemian]

Oo, I know what happens to prompt the next era. It was Great! I'm Dying to see the next video!

[The_Horse-leafs_Cabbage]

The Paleozoic Era is oddly inspiring to learn about.
It was essentially when life threw ideas at the wall, just to see what stuck (metaphorically speaking).
Our planet back then seems almost alien compared to the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.
And to think that it all nearly crumpled into dust in the wake of the Great Dying.
The Ocean Collective, a progressive metal band, did two concept albums on the Phanerozoic Eon (with each song named after a geological period). Well worth a listen.

[planetearth]

We can never get enough of this planet, and I love that.

[lizabme]

Love your work Professor Dave but I think I might disagree with you a little bit on the beginning of the Paleozoic being able to have species radiate because there were no predators. During the Ediacaran most animals were soft and that's why there's very few fossils of them but then during the Cambrian you see hard shells on a lot of the animals. Why would animals need to develop hard shells if not to protect from predators? What about Anomalocaris or Opabinia? Did you mean during the neoproterozoic (Edicarian) there were no predators? Predation has been present since single cell prokaryotes otherwise our theory of the development of eukaryotes goes out the window. If I misunderstood your premise I apologize. Thank you again for your great videos!

[JV-kmxk]

I didn't expect this series. Nice!

[chemdog]

Being the only Atheist in a deeply religious family is a pain especially since the only higher education I have is army NBC school and advance bio surveillance. Thank you so much for all the hard work you do sir.

[TheRolemodel]

1:25 also by changing the weathering of rocks leading to greater nutrient flow into the oceans which in turn produced more biomass and also sequestered CO2
as the biomass on land was still comparatively low

[magiccookiethe]

I just wanted to say that I think what you're doing is very honorable so thank you :).

[buttercxpdraws]

Just found this video. Fantastic! I’m going back through the playlist 💕✌️👏

[rursus]

I love the music and sound effects of this video. Because there are none. I cannot understand why other fact video producers think that it is a good idea to play music during the talk.

[andybeans]

I love this, my interest wanes significantly over the Holocene

[richardaitkenhead]

Another nailer of a video, loving the new doo, 10/10 would bang.

[badmosh]

Please profesor we want the whole intro 🙏

[drummerjeff]

I love these videos!!! Thanks for being such a valuable resource on youtube!!!!

[FrederickTheGrt]

"Nature experimented..." Nature did not experiment, these forms evolved over time.

[kiminimuchu__]

I don't agree with how all tetrapods that left the water in this video are first summarized as "amphibians" (even thought they were not yet true amphibians), and much less the generalization of all amniotes as reptiles, specially using a picture of dimetrodon as the example of reptile, when dimetrodon is *not* a reptile. These types of oversimplifications lead to far too many misunderstandings.

[adrastoso]

The Carboniferous period is my favorite. This video skims through the whole Paleozoic era too fast. I like watching PBS videos talking about each period, all the ch ages to the earth and animal that first appear and go extinct.

[rbitrary]

At 2:00, you say that amphibians evolved into reptiles, which had shelled eggs, but wouldn't it be better to say they evolved into amniotes or reptilomorphs? Since from what I've gathered, mammals are not thought to have evolved from reptiles, but from a common amniote ancestor with shelled eggs.

[jaxonhay]

Great Video Professor Dave. I think it’s worth delving deeper into the climate during The Carboniferous Period. Specifically the CO2 content in the atmosphere compared to today. After all, we are putting the carbon dioxide which was in the atmosphere then back when we burn Pennsylvanian coal. Thanks for the video.