French lensmaker Essilor International SA agreed to buy Luxottica Group SpA, the maker of Ray-Ban sunglasses, for about 22.8 billion euros ($24 billion) in stock, combining the largest manufacturer and retailer in eyewear and creating an e-commerce contacts and eyewear powerhouse.
The Permian Period was the final period of the Paleozoic Era. Lasting from 299 million to 251 million years ago, it followed the Carboniferous Period and preceded the Triassic Period. By the early Permian, the two great continents of the Paleozoic, Gondwana and Euramerica, had collided to form the supercontinent Pangaea.
The Triassic Period was the first of the three geologic periods of the Mesozoic Era. The Triassic began approximately 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian Period and ended about 201 million years ago at the start of the Jurassic Period. The name Triassic derives from the Trias, a sequence of three rock strata, or layers, in Germany that lay above Permian rocks and below Jurassic rocks.