A Brief Overview of the Silurian Period for Middle School Science Classes

Dec 14, 2024

2 min read

Earth history is a fascinating topic! It is also a massive topic! The reading passage below will teach you all about the Silurian Period. If you want to learn more (and why wouldn't you?!), you can check out my Earth History page. I also have all of my passages available at Teachers Pay Teachers. They come with so many extras to get your students thinking about the content! I also recommend scrolling to the bottom of the page to check out my digital picture book on the Silurian Period!

Silurian Period Reading Passage for Middle School Science

The Ordovician period ended with a mass extinction. Temperatures cooled, and sea levels dropped. At the beginning of the Silurian period, the Earth was warming. The glaciers were melting, and sea levels were rising. The warm, shallow seas were perfect for rebuilding life.

Naming the Silurian Period

Roderick Murchison named the Silurian period after the Silures, a tribe from North Wales. Murchison used graptolite fossils to identify the period. The graptolites of the Silurian period were slightly different from the graptolites of the Ordovician period.

New Life in the Sea

The first jawed fish, acanthodian, appeared during the Silurian period. These fish were small with cartilage backbones. Eurypterids, or sea scorpions, were the largest predators in the ocean. Some species of eurypterids grew to be ten feet long with massive claws. They were arthropods because they had a hard shell and jointed legs.

Life on Land

Fungi and algae combined to form lichen. It grew on land along rocky coasts. The decomposing lichen formed the first soil on Earth. The first vascular plants called Cooksonia grew in this new soil. Cooksonia had no leaves. Instead, it had stalks a few centimeters high ending in a ball full of spores. The plant released the spores into the wind to reproduce.

Arthropods became the first air-breathing animals on Earth. Millipedes, centipedes, and arachnids lived around the new plants. The interiors of the continents still held no life.

Continents

The supercontinent Gondwana remained at the South Pole. Three other continents, Laurentia, Baltica, and Avalonia, collided near the equator and formed Laurussia. When the continental plates crashed together, mountains formed. We can see these mountains today in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The Appalachians and mountains in Sweden and Norway were also formed during the Silurian period.

End of the Period

The Silurian period ended with a small extinction event, but the boundary between the Silurian and Devonian periods is not measured by the extinction event. Instead, it is measured by the appearance of a new species of graptolite fossils.

Silurian Period Picture Book

Looking for another way to learn about the Silurian Period? Check out this picture book version. The pages are a part of my Earth History bundle on Teachers Pay Teachers.