The Triassic period was a transition from the Mesozoic to the Paleozoic Era. It ranges from 254 mya to 206 mya between the end of the Permian period and the beginning of the Jurassic. The Triassic had a special climate and biota indigenous to that time, as with almost every other era of the Earth's history. Tectonic occurrences that have never occurred before or since have largely affected the paleoclimate.The land masses of the planet were still bound together in the vast supercontinent known as Pangaea at the beginning of the Triassic period. In the mid-Triassic, Pangaea started to break up , forming Gondwana in the south (South America, Africa , India, Antarctica, and Australia), and Laurasia in the north (North America and Eurasia). The displacement of the two resulting supercontinents was caused by the sea floor spreading between Gondwana and Laurasia on the midocean ridge at the bottom of the Tethys Sea, the body of water. As Pangaea was breaking up, by subducting the ocean plates underneath the continental plates, mountains were rising on the west coast of North America. The mountain formation persisted along the shore from Alaska to Chile in the Middle to Late Triassic. As mountains were forming in the Americas, the expanding rift separated North Africa from Europe. This separation of the continents progressed further westward, separating eastern North America from North Africa finally. Pangaea was affected by the climate of the Triassic period, its centralized location straddling the equator, and the geological activity associated with its breakup. Generally speaking, in relation to sea level, the continents were of high elevation and the sea level did not change significantly during the time. Because of the low sea level, there was no inundation of the continents to form shallow seas. Much of the inland region was isolated from the ocean's cooling and humid effects.The outcome was a globally arid and dry climate, while seasonal monsoons were most likely encountered in regions along the coast. There were no polar ice caps, and the north-south temperature gradient is believed to have been more gradual than today. As the divide between North Africa and Southern Europe developed, the sea level increased, resulting in the flooding of Central and Southern Europe; the terrestrial European climates were hot and dry, as in the Permian. Overall, with gymnosperm forests, the ecosystem tends to include both arid dune ecosystems and wet river and lake habitats.Based on experimental studies, some conclusions may be made regarding more complex regional climates and organisms. The presence in the high northern and southern latitudes of coal-rich sequences, as well as the presence there of large amphibians, suggests that in those regions the paleoclimate was wetter. Living populations of certain Mesozoic ferns (including the Osmundacae and Dipteridacae families) now live under forest canopies in wet, shady areas, so it is possible that the paleoclimates populated by their Triassic ancestors were still damp and shaded. There may also have been large , open areas of low-growing vegetation in the Mesozoic period, including savannas or fern prairies with dry, nutrient-poor soil inhabited by herbaceous plants, such as ferns of the Matoniaceae and Gleicheniaceae families. Thus, the Triassic vegetation was very provincial, considering the union of the continental landmasses, although this deteriorated as the Triassic wore on.Conifers, ginkgos, cycads, and bennettitaleans dominated the northern forest at the beginning of the Triassic, while Dicroidium and Thinnfeldia dominated the forests of Gondwana. Both hemispheres gave way to coniferous and cycad plants by the end of the Triassic. The Triassic-Jurassic boundary is close to the Permo-Triassic boundary in that, while a massive extinction of terrestrial vertebrates occurred, the global ecosystem was not drastically altered. Pangaea began to split up with the end of the Triassic and the beginning of the Jurassic, eventually impacting the atmosphere, but not as dramatically as it had during the Triassic.
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