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According to the giant-impact hypothesis, the Moon originated when Earth and the hypothesized planet Theia collided, sending into orbit myriad moonlets which eventually coalesced into our single Moon. [15] [16] The Moon's gravitational pull stabilised Earth's fluctuating axis of rotation, setting up regular climatic conditions favoring ...
Most of these plants have true roots and leaves, and many were quite tall. The tree-like Archaeopteris, ancestral to the gymnosperms, and the giant cladoxylopsid trees had true wood. These are the oldest known trees of the world's first forests. Prototaxites was the fruiting body of an enormous fungus that stood more than 8 meters tall. By the ...
The dominant tree groups today are all seed plants, the gymnosperms, which include the coniferous trees, and the angiosperms, which contain all fruiting and flowering trees. No free-sporing trees like Archaeopteris exist in the extant flora. It was long thought that the angiosperms arose from within the gymnosperms, but recent molecular ...
A specialized group of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic but did not become dominant until the succeeding Jurassic Period. [11] Archosaurs that became dominant in this period were primarily pseudosuchians , relatives and ancestors of modern crocodilians , while some archosaurs specialized in flight, the first ...
The Carboniferous (/ ˌ k ɑːr b ə ˈ n ɪ f ər ə s / KAR-bə-NIF-ər-əs) [6] is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.86 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 Ma.
When an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, new animals and plants competed to survive on a changing planet. Grapes were the unlikely winners 60 million years ago.
Lepidodendron is an extinct genus of primitive lycopodian vascular plants belonging the order Lepidodendrales.It is well preserved and common in the fossil record. Like other Lepidodendrales, species of Lepidodendron grew as large-tree-like plants in wetland coal forest environments.
A mass extinction 66 million years ago killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but plants survived. Curious Kids: What effect did the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs have on plants and trees? Skip to ...