Devonian Period
419.2 – 358.9 million years ago · Paleozoic Era
The Devonian is often called the Age of Fishes, but it also transformed the land. The first true forests spread across the continents, and vertebrates took their first steps out of the water.
At a glance
- Began
- 419.2 Ma
- Ended
- 358.9 Ma
- Duration
- 60.3 million years
- Era
- Paleozoic
- Climate state
- Greenhouse (warm, little or no polar ice)
- Land above sea level (PaleoDEM)
- ~21.5%
- Dinosaurs on our map
- 0
The world in the Devonian
Open the interactive map at 390 Ma → Elevation view
What Earth was like
Laurussia sat on the equator, while Gondwana lay to the south. The two giants were converging, narrowing the ocean between them and setting up the collision that would later build Pangea.
Climate
The early Devonian was a warm greenhouse. As forests spread, they pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deepened soils, cooling the climate. By the end of the period, glaciers were forming in parts of Gondwana.
Life
Armored placoderms like Dunkleosteus, early sharks and lobe-finned fish filled the seas. Archaeopteris, one of the first true trees, formed forests. Tetrapods such as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, descended from lobe-finned fish like Tiktaalik, crawled into shallow water and onto land.
Dinosaurs of the Devonian
There were no dinosaurs yet. The first dinosaurs appear in the Late Triassic, around 233 million years ago.
How it ended
The Late Devonian extinction came as a series of crises, especially the Kellwasser and Hangenberg events, that devastated reefs and many fish groups. Ocean oxygen loss, possibly connected to the spread of land plants, is a leading explanation.
Key facts
- Tiktaalik (about 375 Ma) is a famous "fishapod" transitional fossil.
- Dunkleosteus could reach several meters in length.
- The Late Devonian extinction is one of the Big Five mass extinctions.
Data: land and sea
Across the Devonian, an average of 21.5% of Earth’s surface stood above reconstructed sea level (range 19.5–23%). Today the same model gives 31.8%.
Where this data comes from
- Continent positions: GPlates Web Service, Merdith et al. (2021) full-plate model, used for 250–540 Ma.
- Elevation and shorelines: PALEOMAP PaleoDEMs, Scotese & Wright (2018), doi:10.5281/zenodo.5460860, CC BY 4.0.
- Period boundaries: ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart (2023/09).
These are scientific reconstructions, not observations. Uncertainty grows the further back in time you go. About & data sources
Related reading
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- FAQQuick answers about Pangea and the map.
- About & data sourcesWhere the reconstructions and fossil data come from.