Early Ordovician

Geologic Age

• 485.4–470.0 Ma

Subdivisions

• Floian: 477.7±1.4–470.0±1.4 Ma

• Tremadocian: 485.4±1.9–477.7±1.4 Ma

Eon / Era / Period / Epoch

• Phanerozoic; Paleozoic; Ordovician

What happened during this time?

• Earliest confirmed plant micro-fossils (Gray et al., 1982; Rubenstein et al., 2010; Kenrick et al., 2012; Vecoli et al., 2017)

• Evidence of bryophyte-like spores around 476 Ma (Shaw and Renzaglia 2004)

• The presence of permanent cryptospores may indicate evidence that eophytes were on the landscape (Edwards et al. 2021)

• The Early Ordovician marks the start of the Eoembryophytic Evolutionary Level (Gray, 1993), in which the first embryophytes were probably established