Norian Stage

Geologic Age

• 227–208.5 Ma

Eon / Era / Period / Epoch

• Phanerozoic; Mesozoic; Triassic; Late Triassic

What happened during this time?

Flora

• The Late Triassic would be filled with ferns, horsetails, conifers, cycads, Bennettitales, ginkgophytes, peltasperms, corystosperms, Caytoniales, Iraniales and Czekanowskiales,

• The earliest (controversial) angiosperm-like macrofossils and pollen are recorded from the Norian.

• Leaves and reproductive parts of Sanmiguelia lewisii, (Brown, 1956; Cornet, 1986, 1989a, 1989b) appear in the Late Triassic. 

• This plant has been assigned to the angiosperms by some, but is considered a stem taxon in the "angiophyte" lineage by others.

Fauna

• Sauropodomorph dinosaurs begin to have success on land. 

• Herbivorous therapsids (the large Dicynodonts and medium-sized traversodonts) decline on land. 

  • The success of dinosaurs over therapsids seems to be due to climatic factors

  • The increasing aridity meant that the moist biome that had enabled the therapsids to flourish had now become a narrow equatorial strip [Olsen et al 2001], bordered by deserts and semi-deserts to both north and south.