Plants reach land
Spores in Ordovician rock are the first trace of green life growing outside the water.
- When
- Known to
- ± 10 million years
- Era
- Ordovician, Paleozoic
Fossil spores with the paired and four-fold arrangements characteristic of land plants appear in Early to Middle Ordovician rocks, including the Nambeet Formation of Australia. The plants themselves were tiny, liverwort-like and confined to damp ground, with no roots or vascular tissue. Even so, their weathering of rock begins drawing down carbon dioxide — the start of a process that eventually reshapes the atmosphere and the climate.