The Paleozoic is divided into several periods spanning millions of years. One of these periods is the carboniferous. It is a geological timescale division that begins approximately 359 million years ago and ended 299 million years ago, giving rise to the period Permian.
In this article we are going to tell you all the characteristics, geology, climate, flora and fauna of the Carboniferous.
Key features
Throughout this period, North America it is subdivided into Pennsylvania and Mississippi. Throughout Europe, there are several subdivisions, such as Western Europe on the one hand and Russia on the other. It is difficult to correlate both subdivisions with the American subdivision. The main characteristics of this period are that large areas of forest have been successively buried due to the global drop in temperature. These large forests decomposed organic matter, giving rise to large strata of coal. For this reason, this period is called the Carboniferous.
Throughout this period, large numbers of primitive fish species have also become extinct and cartilaginous and bony species have expanded. Amphibians began to invade the mainland and reptiles began to develop, which would later play a crucial role in the Carboniferous ecosystem. These animal species have their climax during the Jurassic. The Carboniferous is divided into the Upper and Lower Carboniferous. During the Upper Carboniferous, insects abounded, some of them large, such as dragonflies. The dragonflies of this era were almost two feet in size with outstretched wings, and the trees were so tall that most were around 60 meters in length.
All this environment is generated thanks to an atmosphere with a high concentration of oxygen. According to estimates and research regarding this amount of oxygen could fit in the atmosphere a percentage of 35% was reached, being 21% today. The Carboniferous Period, which is a tectonically active period in our planet's history, will be analyzed in more detail in the next section.
Carboniferous geology
During this period there have been great changes at the geological level, such as the origin of the Hercynian orogeny. This orogeny is what gives rise to the formation of the megacontinent called Pangea. Keep in mind that the glaciation ended in which glaciers spread throughout the center and south of Pangea.
At the beginning of this period, the global sea level decline that occurred at the end of the Devonian was reversed. During these millions of years, sea level gradually rose, creating epicontinental seas across the globe. As mentioned before, there was a general decrease in polar temperatures in the south. Southern Gondwana was thought to be completely glaciated throughout the entire period. However, all these environmental conditions had little effect on the tropics. In these areas of the planet, lush swamp forests began to proliferate, and the temperature gradually rose a few degrees northward, moving away from the glaciers at the South Pole.
Continuing with geology, we can see that much of Europe and North America was located on the equator. This can be seen from the ancient limestone deposits of great thickness. The science concerned with the study of rocks and their temporal organization is geology. stratigraphyThe Carboniferous rocks in Europe and North America were a continuous succession of limestone rocks, animists, shales and coal depositsThese lines of succession were known as cyclothems.
Carboniferous climate
In order to gain a deeper understanding of this period, the entire period is classified into the Lower Carboniferous and Upper Carboniferous periods. During the Lower Carboniferous, as it reached its limit, there was a global drop in sea level due to the expansion of the Gondwana glaciers. This caused a significant global climate regression and cooling. As the glaciers expanded, various vast continental epicontinental seas and large carbon pools of the Mississippi.
On the other hand, this drop in temperature was increased at the South Pole and led to the formation of glaciers in the southern part of Gondwana. Research is not entirely clear as to whether the ice sheets began to form during the Devonian or not. There was also a mass extinction of all oceanic life due to this sea level decline, which affected crinoids and ammonoids, with the loss of between 40% and 80% of all their genera, respectively.
We now move on to the Upper Carboniferous. During the Upper Carboniferous, Gondwana makes contact with the continent of the ancient Red Sandstones, also known as Euramerica. This causes major major phases of the formation of the Hercynian orogeny. The most significant latitudinal temperature gradients increased during the Late Carboniferous. Iberia, which was then located near the other pole, also had a distinctive flora that adapted to cold conditions.
Flora and fauna
As we have mentioned before, the fish began to spread although they regressed due to the decrease in sea level. Reptiles began to colonize the earth's surface. The presence of numerous well-marked growth rings in the fossil flora of Gondwana and Siberia they indicated that conditions were quite cold. In Europe and North America these growth rings were absent. Tropical climates ended during the Upper Carboniferous changing significantly.
Under these conditions, the populations of lycopodiophytes and sphenophytes declined significantly. On the other hand, seed ferns took on a more important role and spread significantly. This seems to indicate that they had to adapt to drier climatic conditions. Coals continued to form, but lycopodiophytes were no longer the primary contributors. To better understand how the fauna developed during this period, it is interesting to consult our section on the .
In this period there were two great oceans that dominated the world: the Panthalassa and the Paleo Tethys.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the Carboniferous period, its characteristics, flora and fauna.