What Types Of Animals Were Present In The Carboniferous Period?

Online exhibits : Geologic time scale : Paleozoic Era

The Carboniferous Period

Carboniferous forest etching

The Carboniferous Period is famous for its vast swamp forests, such as the one depicted hither. Such swamps produced the coal from which the term Carboniferous, or "carbon-bearing," is derived.

The Carboniferous Period lasted from most 359.two to 299 million years ago* during the late Paleozoic Era. The term "Carboniferous" comes from England, in reference to the rich deposits of coal that occur there. These deposits of coal occur throughout northern Europe, Asia, and midwestern and eastern North America. The term "Carboniferous" is used throughout the world to describe this period, although in the United States it has been separated into the Mississippian (early Carboniferous) and the Pennsylvanian (late Carboniferous) Subsystems. This sectionalization was established to distinguish the coal-bearing layers of the Pennsylvanian from the mostly limestone Mississippian, and is a result of differing stratigraphy on the different continents. The Mississippian and Pennsylvanian, in plow, are subdivided into a number of internationally recognized stages based on evolutionary successions of fossil groups . These stages are (from early to late) Tournaisian, Visean, and Serpukhovian for the Mississippian — and Bashkirian, Moscovian, Kasimovian, and Gzhelian for the Pennsylvanian.

In addition to having the ideal conditions for the formation of coal, several major biological, geological, and climatic events occurred during this time. Biologically, nosotros see one of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous: the amniote egg, which allowed for the further exploitation of the land by sure tetrapods. It gave the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles the ability to lay their eggs on land without fear of desiccation. Geologically, the Late Carboniferous collision of Laurasia (present-day Europe, Asia, and Northward America) into Gondwana (nowadays-day Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, and Bharat) produced the Appalachian Mountain chugalug of eastern Northward America and the Hercynian Mountains in the Great britain. A further collision of Siberia and eastern Europe created the Ural Mountains of Russia. And climatically, there was a trend towards mild temperatures during the Carboniferous, as evidenced by the decrease in lycopods and large insects, and an increment in the number of tree ferns.

The stratigraphy of the Mississippian tin can be easily distinguished from that of the Pennsylvanian. The Mississippian environment of Northward America was heavily marine, with seas covering parts of the continent. As a issue, most Mississippian rocks are limestone, which are composed of the remains of crinoids, lime-encrusted light-green algae, or calcium carbonate shaped by waves. The North American Pennsylvanian environment was alternately terrestrial and marine, with the transgression and regression of the seas acquired by glaciation. These environmental conditions, with the vast corporeality of plant material provided by the extensive coal forests, immune for the germination of coal. Establish textile did non decay when the seas covered them, and pressure and rut eventually built upward over millions of years to transform the plant cloth to coal.

Life

The start of the Carboniferous more often than not had a more than compatible, tropical, and humid climate than exists today. Seasons if whatever were indistinct. These observations are based on comparisons betwixt fossil and modern-mean solar day plant morphology. The Carboniferous plants resemble those that live in tropical and mildly temperate areas today. Many of them lack growth rings, which suggests a uniform climate. This uniformity in climate may have been the result of the large expanse of ocean that covered the entire surface of the globe, except for a localized section where Pangea, the massive supercontinent that existed during the tardily Paleozoic and early Triassic, was coming together.

Shallow, warm, marine waters often flooded the continents. Attached filter feeders such as bryozoans, particularly fenestellids, were abundant in this environment, and the bounding main flooring was dominated by brachiopods. Trilobites were increasingly scarce while foraminifers were abundant. The heavily armored fish from the Devonian became extinct, being replaced with more modernistic-looking fish animal.

Uplifting nearly the end of the Mississippian resulted in increased erosion, with an increment in the number of floodplains and deltas. The deltaic environment supported fewer corals, crinoids, blastoids, cryozoans, and bryzoans, which were arable earlier in the Carboniferous. Freshwater clams made their outset advent, and at that place was an increase in gastropod, bony fish, and shark diversity. Every bit the continents moved closer to forming Pangea, there was a net decrease in coastline, which in plow afflicted the diversity of marine life in those shallow continental waters.

2 large ice sheets at the southern pole locked up large amounts of water equally ice. With then much water taken out of the water cycle, sea levels dropped, leading to an increase in terrestrial habitat. Increases and decreases in glaciation during the Pennsylvanian resulted in sea level fluctuations that tin be seen in the rocks as striped patterns of alternate shale and coal layers.

The uplift of the continents caused a transition to a more than terrestrial environment during the Pennsylvanian Subsystem, although swamp forests were widespread. In the swamp forests, seedless plants such as lycopsids flourished and were the primary source of carbon for the coal that is characteristic of the menstruation. The lycopods underwent a major extinction effect after a drying trend, nearly likely caused by increased glaciation, during the Pennsylvanian. Ferns and sphenopsids became more than important after during the Carboniferous, and the earliest relatives of the conifers appeared. The offset land snails appeared and insects with wings that can't fold back, such as dragonflies and mayflies, flourished and radiated. These insects, as well as millipedes, scorpions, and spiders became of import in the ecosystem.

A trend towards aridity and an increase in terrestrial habitat led to the increasing importance of the amniotic egg for reproduction. The earliest amniote fossil was the lizard-similar Hylonomus, which was lightly congenital with deep, strong jaws and slender limbs. The basal tetrapods became more than various during the Carboniferous. Predators with long snouts, short sprawling limbs and flattened heads such every bit temnospondyls, like Amphibiamus (to a higher place) appeared. Anthracosaurs — basal tetrapods and amniotes with deep skulls and a less sprawling body plan that afforded greater agility — appeared during the Carboniferous and were quickly followed past diapsids which divided into ii groups: (1) the marine reptiles, lizards, and snakes, and (two) the archosaurs — crocodiles, dinosaurs, and birds. The synapsids also fabricated their first appearance, and presumably the anapsids did as well, although the oldest fossils for that group are from the Lower Permian.

Stratigraphy

The appearance or disappearance of animal ordinarily marks the boundaries between fourth dimension periods. The Carboniferous is separated from the earlier Devonian past the appearance of the conodont Siphonodella sulcata or Siphondella duplicata. Conodonts are fossils that resemble the teeth or jaws of primitive eel- or hagfish-like fish. The Carboniferous-Permian boundary is distinguished past the appearance of the fusulinid foram Sphaeroschwagerina fusiformis in Europe and Pseudoschwagerina beedei in North America. Fusulinids are giants among protists and could reach a centimeter in length. They were abundant enough to form sizable deposits known as "rice rock" because of the resemblance betwixt fusulinids and rice grains.

The Mississippian Subsystem is differentiated from the Pennsylvanian by the appearance of the conodont Declinognathodus noduliferus, the ammonoid genus Homoceras, and the foraminifers Millerella pressa and Millerella marblensis, though these markers apply only to marine deposits. The distinction betwixt the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subsystems may likewise be illustrated by a intermission in the flora due to transitional changes from a marine to a more than terrestrial environment.

The stratigraphy of the Mississippian is distinguished by shallow-water limestones. Some of these limestones are composed of parts of organisms, primarily the remains of crinoids that thrived in the shallow seas. Other limestones include lime mudstones, composed of the carbonate mud produced by green algae, and oolithic limestones, equanimous of calcium carbonate in concentric spheres produced by high wave energy. Also constitute in Mississippian strata, though not as common, are sandstones (sedimentary rock composed of quartz sand and cemented by silica or calcium carbonate) and siltstones (rock composed of hardened silt).

Coal beds, which can exist upward to 11 to 12 meters thick, narrate the late Carboniferous. The forests of seedless vascular plants that existed in the tropical swamp forests of Europe and Due north America provided the organic material that became coal. Expressionless plants did non completely decay and were turned to peat in these swamp forests. When the sea covered the swamps, marine sediments covered the peat. Eventually, heat and pressure level transformed these organic remains into coal. Coal assurance, pockets of plant debris that were preserved as fossils and not converted to coal, are sometimes institute within the coal layers.

Multiple transgressions and regressions of the Pennsylvanian seas beyond the continent tin can be seen in the rocks, and fifty-fifty counted, because they exit a telltale sequence of layers. Every bit sea levels ascent, the layers may go from sandstone (beach), to silty shale or siltstone (tidal), to freshwater limestone (lagoon), to underclay (terrestrial), to coal (terrestrial swampy woods). Then every bit sea levels fall, i may see a shale (nearshore tidal) grade to limestone (shallow marine) and finally to blackness shale (deep marine).

Index fossils are the remains of plants and animals that characterize a well-defined time span and occur over a wide range of geography. Fossils of marine life characterize the Mississippian, as shallow epicontinental seas covered the United States at that time. These fossils include solitary corals and Syringopora, tubular colonial corals. Other fossil colonial corals include Stelechophyllum and Siphonodendron. Because conodont fossils are distributed all over the world, they are utilized internationally to date Mississippian rocks.

Index fossils used for the Pennsylvanian Subsystem are fusulinid foraminifers and the pollen and spores from the coal forests prevalent during that time. The Mississippian-Pennsylvanian boundary is marked by the advent of the fusulinid Pseudostaffella antiqua. Other fossils used to place the early Pennsylvanian are the three ammonoid cephalopod genera Gastrioceras, Daiboloceras, and Paralegoceras, all found in marine deposits.

Localities

Joggins, Nova Scotia: This Pennsylvanian UNESCO Earth Heritage Site was habitation to early tetrapods such as Dendrerpeton.

Mazon Creek, Illinois: This site has become famous for its iron concretions preserving both plants and marine invertebrates.

Resources and references

Example, E.C. 1919. The environment of vertebrate life in the late Paleozoic in North America: A paleogeographic study. The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.
Instance, Due east.C. 1926. Environment of tetrapod in the late Paleozoic of regions other than North America. The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.
Dickins, J.K. et al (eds.). 1997. Tardily Paleozoic and early Mesozoic circum-Pacific events and their global correlation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Dott, R.H., Jr., and D.R. Prothero. 1994. Evolution of the Earth, 5th ed. McGraw-Loma, Inc., New York.
Lemon, R.R. 1993. Vanished Worlds: An Introduction to Historical Geology. Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA.
Chengyuan, W. 1987. Carboniferous boundaries in People's republic of china: Contribution to the 11th International Congress of Carboniferous Stratigraphy and Geology, 1987, Beijing, China. Science Press, Beijing, People's republic of china.
Linxin, Z. 1987. Carboniferous Stratigraphy in China. Scientific discipline Press, Beijing, China.
Observe out most fossil fish of the Mississippian from the Carry Gulch Limestone of Montana.
Find out more near the Carboniferous paleontology and geology of North America at the Paleontology Portal.
See the Wikipedia page on the Carboniferous.