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Middle Triassic

Second epoch of the Triassic period

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Formerly the middle series in the Triassic was also known as Muschelkalk. This name is now only used for a specific unit of rock strata with approximately Middle Triassic age, found in western Europe. The Ashfield Shale and Bringelly Shale of western Sydney date to this epoch, with the former featuring fluvial fossils from that era.

Middle Triassic life

Following the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the most devastating of all mass-extinctions, life recovered slowly. In the Middle Triassic, many groups of organisms reached higher diversity again, such as the marine reptiles (e.g. ichthyosaurs, sauropterygians, thallatosaurs), ray-finned fish and many invertebrate groups like molluscs (ammonoids, bivalves, gastropods).

During the Middle Triassic, there were not yet any flowering plants, but instead there were seed ferns and gymnosperms. Small dinosauriforms began to appear, like Nyasasaurus and the ichnogenus Iranosauripus.

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