1) At the end of the Furongian (late Cambrian) and beginning of the Ordovician, the temperature of surface waters in the equatorial zone reached 43.9°C (111.02°F), which is significantly higher than today. By the end of the Ordovician, as a result of global cooling and the onset of glaciation, these temperatures dropped to 24.2°C (75.56°F), which is lower than today.
2) Both the shortest (Induan) and longest (Norian) non-Quaternary ages are included in the Triassic period. Induan was almost four times shorter than the Quaternary period, while Norian lasted almost as long as the Neogene period.
3) There are indications that fires occurred as early as the Silurian due to the spread of terrestrial plants.
4) The Karoo Ice Age ended about 260 million years ago. The next, Late Cenozoic glaciation, began ~34 million years ago with the freezing of Antarctica. During the ~226 million years separating them, the Earth maintained a greenhouse climate. Pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs appeared and went extinct during this interval.
5) Scorpions became the first fully terrestrial apex predators and remained so until the Carboniferous period.
6) Latimeria is a living coelacanthiform fish. The youngest fossilized coelacanthiforms were found in Maastrichtian sediments, indicating a gap in fossil record of 66 million years.
7) The last geomagnetic reversal occurred before Homo sapiens evolved.
8) Formed as a result of powerful eruptions in central Pangea about 201.4 million years ago, the Central Atlantic magmatic province originally occupied an area larger than modern Australia.
9) People began using glue and brewing beer before the Holocene epoch.
10) We still don't know when the first insects appeared. One molecular analysis suggests they may have appeared in the Early Ordovician or even Cambrian. A gap of about 100 million years is in the history of insects in that case.
And here is Rutiodon, a phytosaur from the Norian age.
