Carboniferous
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| Carboniferous | |||
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Vertical axis scale: millions of years ago | |||
The first of the modern 'system' names, it was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822,[8] based on a study of the British rock succession. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two geological periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian.[9]
Terrestrial animal life was well established by the Carboniferous Period.
Insects would undergo a major radiation during the late Carboniferous. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would eventually be laid down and become the coal beds characteristic of the Carboniferous stratigraphy evident today.
The later half of the period experienced
Etymology and history
The term "Carboniferous" had first been used as an adjective by Irish geologist
Stratigraphy
The Carboniferous is divided into two subsystems, the lower Mississippian and upper Pennsylvanian, which are sometimes treated as separate geological periods in North American stratigraphy.
Stages can be defined globally or regionally. For global stratigraphic correlation, the
| Series/epoch | Stage/age | Lower boundary | |
| Permian | Asselian | 298.9 ±0.15 Mya | |
| Pennsylvanian | Upper | Gzhelian | 303.7 ±0.1 Mya |
| Kasimovian | 307.0 ±0.1 Mya | ||
| Middle | Moscovian | 315.2 ±0.2 Mya | |
| Lower | Bashkirian | 323.2 ±0.4 Mya | |
| Mississippian | Upper | Serpukhovian | 330.9 ±0.2 Mya |
| Middle | Visean
|
346.7 ±0.4 Mya | |
| Lower | Tournaisian | 358.9 ±0.4 Mya | |
ICS units
The Mississippian was first proposed by Alexander Winchell, and the Pennsylvanian was proposed by J. J. Stevenson in 1888, and both were proposed as distinct and independent systems by H. S. Williams in 1881.[15]
The Tournaisian was named after the Belgian city of
The Viséan Stage was introduced by André Dumont in 1832. Dumont named this stage after the city of
The Serpukhovian Stage was proposed in 1890 by Russian stratigrapher
The Bashkirian was named after Bashkiria, the then Russian name of the republic of Bashkortostan in the southern Ural Mountains of Russia. The stage was introduced by Russian stratigrapher Sofia Semikhatova in 1934. The GSSP for the base of the Bashkirian is located at Arrow Canyon in Nevada, US, which was ratified in 1996. The GSSP for the base of the Bashkirian is defined by the first appearance of the conodont Declinognathodus noduliferus.[15]
The Moscovian is named after Moscow, Russia, and was first introduced by Sergei Nikitin in 1890. The Moscovian currently lacks a defined GSSP.[15]
The Kasimovian is named after the Russian city of Kasimov, and originally included as part of Nikitin's original 1890 definition of the Moscovian. It was first recognised as a distinct unit by A.P. Ivanov in 1926, who named it the "Tiguliferina" Horizon after a kind of brachiopod.[15] The Kasimovian currently lacks a defined GSSP.[16]
The Gzhelian is named after the Russian village of Gzhel (Russian: Гжель), nearby Ramenskoye, not far from Moscow. The name and type locality were defined by Sergei Nikitin in 1890. The base of the Gzhelian currently lacks a defined GSSP.[15]
The GSSP for the base of the Permian is located in the Aidaralash River valley near
Regional stratigraphy
North America
In North American stratigraphy, the Mississippian is divided, in ascending order, into the Kinderhookian, Osagean, Meramecian and Chesterian series, while the Pennsylvanian is divided into the Morrowan, Atokan, Desmoinesian, Missourian and Virgilian series.[15]
The Kinderhookian is named after the village of Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois. It corresponds to the lower part of the Tournasian.[15]
The Osagean is named after the Osage River in St. Clair County, Missouri. It corresponds to the upper part of the Tournaisian and the lower part of the Viséan.[15]
The Meramecian is named after the Meramec Highlands Quarry, located the near the Meramec River, southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. It corresponds to the mid Viséan.[15]
The Chesterian is named after the Chester Group, a sequence of rocks named after the town of Chester, Illinois. It corresponds to the upper Viséan and all of the Serpukhovian.[15]
The Morrowan is named after the Morrow Formation located in NW Arkansas, it corresponds to the lower Bashkirian.[15]
The Atokan was originally a formation named after the town of Atoka in southwestern Oklahoma. It corresponds to the upper Bashkirian and lower Moscovian[15]
The Desmoinesian is named after the Des Moines Formation found near the Des Moines River in central Iowa. It corresponds to the middle and upper Moscovian and lower Kasimovian.[15]
The Missourian was named at the same time as the Desmoinesian. It corresponds to the middle and upper Kasimovian.[15]
The Virgilian is named after the town of Virgil, Kansas, it corresponds to the Gzhelian.[15]
Europe
The European Carboniferous is divided into the lower Dinantian and upper Silesian, the former being named for the Belgian city of Dinant, and the latter for the Silesia region of Central Europe. The boundary between the two subdivisions is older than the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian boundary, lying within the lower Serpukhovian. The boundary has traditionally been marked by the first appearance of the ammonoid Cravenoceras leion. In Europe, the Dinantian is primarily marine, the so-called "Carboniferous Limestone", while the Silesian is known primarily for its coal measures.
The Dinantian is divided up into two stages, the Tournaisian and Viséan. The Tournaisian is the same length as the ICS stage, but the Viséan is longer, extending into the lower Serpukhovian.
The Silesian is divided into three stages, in ascending order, the Namurian, Westphalian, Stephanian. The Autunian, which corresponds to the middle and upper Gzhelian, is considered a part of the overlying Rotliegend.
The Namurian is named after the city of Namur in Belgium. It corresponds to the middle and upper Serpukhovian and the lower Bashkirian.
The Westphalian is named after the region of Westphalia in Germany it corresponds to the upper Bashkirian and all but the uppermost Moscovian.
The Stephanian is named after the city of Saint-Étienne in eastern France. It corresponds to the uppermost Moscovian, the Kasimovian, and the lower Gzhelian.[15]
Palaeogeography
A global drop in
Mid-Carboniferous, a drop in sea level precipitated a major marine extinction, one that hit
The Carboniferous was a time of active
There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous:
Climate
Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were high: approximately 20 °C (68 °F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12 °C (54 °F). Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fell during the Carboniferous Period from roughly 8 times the current level in the beginning, to a level similar to today's at the end.[19] The Carboniferous is considered part of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age, which began in the latest Devonian with the formation of small glaciers in Gondwana.[22] During the Tournaisian the climate warmed, before cooling, there was another warm interval during the Viséan, but cooling began again during the early Serpukhovian. At the beginning of the Pennsylvanian around 323 million years ago, glaciers began to form around the South Pole, which would grow to cover a vast area of Gondwana. This area extended from the southern reaches of the Amazon basin and covered large areas of southern Africa, as well as most of Australia and Antarctica. Cyclothems, which began around 313 million years ago, and continue into the following Permian indicate that the size of the glaciers were controlled by Milankovitch cycles akin to recent ice ages, with glacial periods and interglacials. Deep ocean temperatures during this time were cold due to the influx of cold bottom waters generated by seasonal melting of the ice cap.[24]
The cooling and drying of the climate led to the
Rocks and coal
Carboniferous rocks in Europe and eastern North America largely consist of a repeated sequence of limestone, sandstone, shale and coal beds.[25] In North America, the early Carboniferous is largely marine limestone, which accounts for the division of the Carboniferous into two periods in North American schemes. The Carboniferous coal beds provided much of the fuel for power generation during the Industrial Revolution and are still of great economic importance.
The large coal deposits of the Carboniferous may owe their existence primarily to two factors. The first of these is the appearance of wood tissue and bark-bearing trees. The evolution of the wood fiber lignin and the bark-sealing, waxy substance suberin variously opposed decay organisms so effectively that dead materials accumulated long enough to fossilise on a large scale. The second factor was the lower sea levels that occurred during the Carboniferous as compared to the preceding Devonian Period. This fostered the development of extensive lowland swamps and forests in North America and Europe. Based on a genetic analysis of mushroom fungi, it was proposed that large quantities of wood were buried during this period because animals and decomposing bacteria and fungi had not yet evolved enzymes that could effectively digest the resistant phenolic lignin polymers and waxy suberin polymers. They suggest that fungi that could break those substances down effectively became dominant only towards the end of the period, making subsequent coal formation much rarer.[26][27] The delayed fungal evolution hypothesis is controversial, however, and has been challenged by other researchers, who conclude that a combination of vast depositional systems present on the continents during the formation of Pangaea and widespread humid, tropical conditions were responsible for the high rate of coal formation.[28]
The Carboniferous trees made extensive use of lignin. They had bark to wood ratios of 8 to 1, and even as high as 20 to 1. This compares to modern values less than 1 to 4. This bark, which must have been used as support as well as protection, probably had 38% to 58% lignin.[
In eastern North America, marine beds are more common in the older part of the period than the later part and are almost entirely absent by the late Carboniferous. More diverse geology existed elsewhere, of course. Marine life is especially rich in
Life
Plants
The Carboniferous lycophytes of the order Lepidodendrales, which are cousins (but not ancestors) of the tiny club-moss of today, were huge trees with trunks 30 meters high and up to 1.5 meters in diameter. These included
The fronds of some Carboniferous ferns are almost identical with those of living species. Probably many species were
The Equisetales included the common giant form Calamites, with a trunk diameter of 30 to 60 cm (24 in) and a height of up to 20 m (66 ft). Sphenophyllum was a slender climbing plant with whorls of leaves, which was probably related both to the calamites and the lycopods.[34]
and preferred higher drier ground.
Marine invertebrates
In the oceans the
The microscopic shells of
Both
Trilobites are rarer than in previous periods, on a steady trend towards extinction, represented only by the proetid group. Ostracoda, a class of crustaceans, were abundant as representatives of the meiobenthos; genera included Amphissites, Bairdia, Beyrichiopsis, Cavellina, Coryellina, Cribroconcha, Hollinella, Kirkbya, Knoxiella, and Libumella.
Crinoids were highly numerous during the Carboniferous, though they suffered a gradual decline in diversity during the middle Mississippian.[41] Dense submarine thickets of long-stemmed crinoids appear to have flourished in shallow seas, and their remains were consolidated into thick beds of rock. Prominent genera include Cyathocrinus, Woodocrinus, and Actinocrinus. Echinoids such as Archaeocidaris and Palaeechinus were also present. The blastoids, which included the Pentreinitidae and Codasteridae and superficially resembled crinoids in the possession of long stalks attached to the seabed, attain their maximum development at this time.[34]
Aviculopecten subcardiformis; a
bivalve from the Logan Formation (Lower Carboniferous) of Wooster, Ohio(external mold)
Bivalves (Aviculopecten) and brachiopods (Syringothyris) in the Logan Formation (Lower Carboniferous) in Wooster, Ohio
Syringothyris sp.; a spiriferid brachiopod from the Logan Formation (Lower Carboniferous) of Wooster, Ohio (internal mold)
Palaeophycus ichnosp.; a trace fossil from the Logan Formation (Lower Carboniferous) of Wooster, Ohio
Crinoid calyx from the Lower Carboniferous of Ohio with a conical platyceratid gastropod (Palaeocapulus acutirostre) attached
Conulariid from the Lower Carboniferous of Indiana
Tabulate coral (a syringoporid); Boone Limestone (Lower Carboniferous) near Hiwasse, Arkansas
Typhloesus was a bizarre invertebrate that lived in Montana. It is possibly a mollusk related to gastropods.
Essexella was a cnidarian that lived in Northern Illinois. It was long considered a scyphozoan, but is now regarded as a Sea anemone
Freshwater and lagoonal invertebrates
Freshwater Carboniferous invertebrates include various
The eurypterids were also diverse, and are represented by such genera as Adelophthalmus, Megarachne (originally misinterpreted as a giant spider, hence its name) and the specialised very large Hibbertopterus. Many of these were amphibious.
Frequently a temporary return of marine conditions resulted in marine or brackish water genera such as
Terrestrial invertebrates
Fossil remains of air-breathing
The late Carboniferous giant dragonfly-like insect Meganeura grew to wingspans of 75 cm (2 ft 6 in).
The gigantic Pulmonoscorpius from the early Carboniferous reached a length of up to 70 cm (2 ft 4 in).
Arthropleura was a giant millipede that fed on the Carboniferous plants.
Mazothairos was a large palaeodictyopteran insect from Mazon Creek.
Stem-group onychophoran known from Indiana
Maiocercus was a trigonotarbid arachnid that lived in the United Kingdom around 310 million years ago.
Fish
Many fish inhabited the Carboniferous seas; predominantly
Most species of Carboniferous marine fish have been described largely from teeth, fin spines and dermal ossicles,[34] with smaller freshwater fish preserved whole.
Freshwater fish were abundant, and include the genera Ctenodus, Uronemus, Acanthodes, Cheirodus, and Gyracanthus.
Symmoriidaroamed the oceans of the early Carboniferous.
Falcatus was a Carboniferous holocephalan, with a high degree of sexual dimorphism.
Dracopristis was a Ctenacanthiform elasmobranch from the late Carboniferous of New Mexico.
Ornithoprion was a small-sized Eugeneodont holocephalan that had an elongated lower jaw.
Allenypterus was a Coelacanth fish known from the Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana.
A fossil of Echinochimaera, a fish known from the Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana
Phanerosteon was a Bony fish belonging to the extinct order Palaeonisciformes.
Rhizodus was a large freshwater Rhizodont sarcopterygian from Europe and North America.
Squatinactis, a genus of Elasmobranch fish from Montana
Bandringa is a bizarre elasmobranch fish that lived in Illinois during the moscovian stage. It superficially resembled a paddlefish, with an elongated upper rostrum.
Iniopteryx was a holocephalan that lived in North America. This fish belonged to a group called the Iniopterygiformes, that possibly lived like flying fish.
Tetrapods
Carboniferous
The
Reptiles underwent a major evolutionary radiation in response to the drier climate that preceded the rainforest collapse.[14][50] By the end of the Carboniferous Period, amniotes had already diversified into a number of groups, including several families of synapsid pelycosaurs, protorothyridids, captorhinids, saurians and araeoscelids.
The
Mississippian, and known from Scotland.
Hylonomus, the earliest sauropsid reptile, appeared in the Pennsylvanian, and is known from the Joggins Formation in Nova Scotia, and possibly New Brunswick.
Petrolacosaurus, the earliest known diapsid reptile, lived during the late Carboniferous.
Archaeothyris is the oldest known synapsid, and is found in rocks from Nova Scotia.
aïstopod tetrapodomorph from the late Carboniferous of Colorado.
Crassygyrinus was a carnivorous stem-tetrapod from the early Carboniferous of Scotland.
Microbrachis was a lepospondyl amphibian known from the Czech Republic.
Amphibamus was a dissorophoid temnospondyl from the Late Carboniferous of Illinois.
Fungi
As plants and animals were growing in size and abundance in this time (for example,
During the Carboniferous, animals and bacteria had great difficulty with processing the lignin and cellulose that made up the gigantic trees of the period. Microbes had not evolved that could process them. The trees, after they died, simply piled up on the ground, occasionally becoming part of long-running wildfires after a lightning strike, with others very slowly degrading into coal. White rot fungus were the first organisms to be able to process these and break them down in any reasonable quantity and timescale. Thus, some have proposed that fungi helped end the Carboniferous Period, stopping accumulation of undegraded plant matter,[52][53] although this idea remains highly controversial.[28]
Extinction events
Romer's gap
The first 15 million years of the Carboniferous had very limited terrestrial fossils. This gap in the fossil record is called Romer's gap after the American palaentologist Alfred Romer. While it has long been debated whether the gap is a result of fossilisation or relates to an actual event, recent work indicates the gap period saw a drop in atmospheric oxygen levels, indicating some sort of ecological collapse.[54] The gap saw the demise of the Devonian fish-like ichthyostegalian labyrinthodonts, and the rise of the more advanced temnospondyl and reptiliomorphan amphibians that so typify the Carboniferous terrestrial vertebrate fauna.
Carboniferous rainforest collapse
Before the end of the Carboniferous Period, an
The new climatic conditions were not favorable to the growth of rainforest and the animals within them. Rainforests shrank into isolated islands, surrounded by seasonally dry habitats. Towering
Amphibians, the dominant vertebrates at the time, fared poorly through this event with large losses in biodiversity; reptiles continued to diversify due to key adaptations that let them survive in the drier habitat, specifically the hard-shelled egg and scales, both of which retain water better than their amphibian counterparts.[14]
See also
- List of Carboniferous tetrapods
- Carboniferous rainforest collapse
- Important Carboniferous Lagerstätten
- East Kirkton Quarry; c. 350 mya; Bathgate, Scotland
- Hamilton Quarry; 320 mya; Kansas, US
- Mazon Creek; 300 mya; Illinois, US
- List of fossil sites (with link directory)
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External links
- "Geologic Time Scale 2004". International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). Archived from the original on January 6, 2013. Retrieved January 15, 2013.
- Examples of Carboniferous Fossils
- 60+ images of Carboniferous Foraminifera
- Carboniferous (Chronostratography scale)
