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The Triassic Portal

Introduction

The Triassic (/trˈæsɪk/ try-ASS-ik; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period of the Mesozoic Era. Both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. The Triassic Period is subdivided into three epochs: Early Triassic, Middle Triassic and Late Triassic.

The Triassic began in the wake of the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which left the Earth's biosphere impoverished; it was well into the middle of the Triassic before life recovered its former diversity. Three categories of organisms can be distinguished in the Triassic record: survivors from the extinction event, new groups that flourished briefly, and other new groups that went on to dominate the Mesozoic Era. Reptiles, especially archosaurs, were the chief terrestrial vertebrates during this time. A specialized group of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic but did not become dominant until the succeeding Jurassic Period. Archosaurs that became dominant in this period were primarily pseudosuchians, relatives and ancestors of modern crocodilians, while some archosaurs specialized in flight, the first time among vertebrates, becoming the pterosaurs.

Therapsids, the dominant vertebrates of the preceding Permian period, declined throughout the period. The first true mammals, themselves a specialized subgroup of therapsids, also evolved during this period. The vast supercontinent of Pangaea dominated the globe during the Triassic, but in the following Jurassic period it began to gradually rift into two separate landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south.

The global climate during the Triassic was mostly hot and dry, with deserts spanning much of Pangaea's interior. However, the climate shifted and became more humid as Pangaea began to drift apart. The end of the period was marked by yet another major mass extinction, the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event, that wiped out many groups, including most pseudosuchians, and allowed dinosaurs to assume dominance in the Jurassic. (Full article...)

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Selected article on the Triassic world and its legacies

Varied flatworm species fromKunstformen der Natur (1904), plate 75.
Varied flatworm species fromKunstformen der Natur (1904), plate 75.
The flatworms, or Platyhelminthes are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrates. Unlike other bilaterians, they are acoelomates, (having no body cavity), and no specialized circulatory and respiratory organs, which restricts them to having flattened shapes that allow oxygen and nutrients to pass through their bodies by diffusion. The digestive cavity has only one opening for both the ingestion (intake of nutrients) and egestion (removal of undigested wastes); as a result, the food cannot be processed continuously. Over half of all known flatworm species are parasitic. Free-living flatworms are mostly predators, and live in water or in shaded, humid terrestrial environments such as leaf litter.

Analyses since the mid-1980s have separated out one subgroup, the Acoelomorpha, as basal bilaterians (animals with bilateral symmetry and hence with distinct front and rear ends). The remaining Platyhelminthes form a monophyletic group - one that contains all and only descendants of a common ancestor that is itself a member of the group. The redefined Platyhelminthes is part of the Lophotrochozoa, one of the three main groups of more complex bilaterians. These analyses had concluded the redefined Platyhelminthes, excluding Acoelomorpha, consists of two monophyletic subgroups, Catenulida and Rhabditida, with Cestoda, Trematoda and Monogenea forming a monophyletic subgroup within one branch of the Rhabditophora. Hence, the traditional platyhelminth subgroup "Turbellaria" is now regarded as paraphyletic, since it excludes the wholly parasitic groups, although these are descended from one group of "turbellarians". (see more...)

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Life restoration of a polydactylous hupehsuchian.
Life restoration of a polydactylous hupehsuchian.

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Life restoration of Vancleavea campi.

Life restoration of Vancleavea campi.
Photo credit: User:Smokeybjb

Selected article on the Triassic in human science, culture and economics

Edward Drinker Cope (left) and Othniel Charles Marsh (right).
Edward Drinker Cope (left) and Othniel Charles Marsh (right).
Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology (2005) is a graphic novel written by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by the company Big Time Attic. The book tells a slightly fictionalized account of the Bone Wars, a period of intense excavation, speculation, and rivalry which led to a greater understanding of dinosaurs in the western United States. This novel is the first semi-fictional work written by Ottaviani; previously, he had taken no creative license with the characters he depicted, portraying them strictly according to historical sources.

Bone Sharps follows the two scientists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Marsh as they engage in an intense rivalry for prestige. Ottaviani has Cope and Marsh interact and meet many important figures of the Gilded Age, from P. T. Barnum to U.S. Grant, as the two scientists pursue their hotheaded and sometimes illegal acquisitions of fossils. Unlike in his previous books, "the scientists are the bad guys this time". Upon release, the novel received praise from critics for its exceptional historical content, although some reviewers wished more fiction had been woven into the story. (see more...)

Geochronology

Epochs - Early Triassic - Middle Triassic - Late Triassic
Stages - Induan - Olenekian - Anisian - Ladinian - Carnian - Norian - Rhaetian
Events - Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event - Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event - Taconic orogeny - Late Ordovician glaciation - Alice Springs Orogeny - Ordovician–Silurian extinction event

Landmasses - Baltica - Gondwana - Laurentia - Siberia
Bodies of water - Iapetus Ocean - Khanty Ocean - Proto-Tethys Ocean - Rheic Ocean - Tornquist Sea - Ural Ocean
Animals - Articulate brachiopods - Bryozoans - Cornulitids - Crinoids - Cystoids - Gastropods - Graptolites - Jawed fishes - Nautiloids - Ostracoderms - Rugose corals - Star fishes - Tabulate corals - Tentaculitids - Trilobites
Trace fossils - Petroxestes - Trypanites
Plants - Marchantiophyta

Fossil sites - Beecher's Trilobite Bed - Walcott–Rust quarry
Stratigraphic units - Chazy Formation - Fezouata formation - Holston Formation - Kope Formation - Potsdam Sandstone - St. Peter Sandstone

Researchers - Charles Emerson Beecher - Charles Lapworth - Charles Doolittle Walcott
Culture - Animal Armageddon - List of creatures in the Walking with... series - Sea Monsters

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¤ Category:Mesozoic portals Category:Geologic time portals