Tree biloba". This is considered to be a living fossil because it is virtually unchanged from the fossilised specimens found in Triassic deposits. During the Mesozoic (245 to 66 million years ago) the conifers flourished and became adapted to live in all the major terrestrial habitats. Subsequently, the tree forms of flowering plants evolved during the Cretaceous period. These began to displace the conifers during the Tertiary era (66 to 2 million years ago) when forests covered the globe. When the climate cooled 1.5 million years ago and the first of four ice ages occurred, the forests retreated as the ice
Geology of the Seychelles 85 million years ago as the Mascarene ocean basin formed. The Deccan Traps hotspot, which poured out immense basalt flows in India 65 million years ago and ultimately formed islands such as Mauritius and Réunion, isolated Seychelles. The microcontinent was confined between northern Madagascar and western India until the Late Cretaceous and evolved during the Cenozoic through a process of rift and drift tectonics. The microcontinent was uplifted, eroded and impacted by volcanic eruptions. In the early Cenozoic, around 63 million years ago, alkaline plutonic and volcanic rocks emplaced to become the Silhouette and North islands. Seychelles sources most of