Fossils Conifer

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The oldest known conifer fossils date to the late Carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era, some 300 million years ago. The earliest known angiosperms are less than half this old. 

Conifers diversified greatly during the Paleozoic’s relatively dry, cold Permian period (290-245 million years ago), which followed the Carboniferous. The drought-resistant, needlelike leaves characteristic of many modern conifers may have evolved during that dry period.

The modern families of conifers began to differentiate in the Mesozoic era (245 million to 65 million years ago). Conifers were the dominant vegetation during much of that era. 

They gradually gave way to the angiosperms, which achieved worldwide dominance by about ninety million years ago, during the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic, and remain dominant today. In the early Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era, which dawned about 66 million years ago, a diverse coniferous flora covered large areas of the Northern Hemisphere.