Geology of Ohio terrestrial environment since the Permian. For instance, the main subdivisions of the Pennsylvanian: the Pottsville Group, Alleghany Group, Conemaugh Group and Monongahela Group, along with the Early Permian Dunkard Group, are each more terrestrial than the last. The region was situated inland, experiencing terrestrial erosion as the Proto-North American continent of Laurasia collided with Gondwana to form the supercontinent Pangaea. Rocks from the end of Paleozoic are best exposed in road cuts along I-77, between Canton and Marietta, I-77 from Cambridge to Bridgeport and cliffs on the Ohio River north of Marietta to East Liverpool. For 245 million years, spanning
Saltoposuchus in newly found ecological niches, Pangaea started splitting into Laurasia and Gondwana, and the air was very arid with hot summers and cold winters. After marine life had been wiped out by the mass extinction event, the Triassic waters were populated with very few families of fish. The Triassic Period showed the first development of modern stony corals and a time of modest reef building activity in the shallower waters of the Tethys near the coasts of Pangaea. During the Mesozoic Era, early mammals, reptilian species, and other insects populated the land. Insects that had survived the mass extinction and