TIME

Life Conquers Land

Approximately 470–430 million years ago

Illustration of a Silurian shoreline at dawn: low clumps of small forked plants like Cooksonia and green mats of early land plants on a muddy tidal flat, with a eurypterid and a millipede-like arthropod near the water.

Earth & LifeLife Conquers Land

Life colonizes the land.

Plants and other organisms gradually colonized land. The move took tens of millions of years, and different groups arrived at different times.

Microscopic spores of land plants date to about 470 million years ago. Whole-plant fossils such as Cooksonia are younger.

Approximately 470–430 million years ago, placed on the scale of its era on a line leading toward now.

Era
Earth & Life
Period
Approximately 470–430 million years ago
Edition
1/1
Status
Not Released
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Background artwork

An original illustration generated for TIME with an AI image model, 2026. An artistic reconstruction of a shoreline about 430 million years ago, when small plants such as Cooksonia grew near water. The scene is an interpretation drawn from fossils.