What was the Triassic Period?
The Triassic period is the first period of the Mesozoic Era, which lasted for about 180 million years. Mesozoic means “middle life”, the time between the ancient Paleozoic and the modern Cenozoic. The Triassic itself was from about 251 to 199 million years ago. The Triassic period marked an unusual time — life was recolonizing the Earth after the greatest mass extinction ever, the Permian-Triassic extinction, during which 96% of marine genera, 70% of terrestrial genera and 99.5% of individual organisms were annihilated. The precise cause of the Permian-Triassic extinction is not known, but it was so devastating that biologists informally call it “the Great Dying.” Throughout the Triassic period, the world was defined by one super-continent, Pangaea, and one super-sea, Panthalassa. In the center of Pangaea, there was a gigantic desert, the largest the Earth has ever seen. The general climate everywhere was very hot and dry, presenting a challenge for colonization. In the oceans, modern
