Las Vegas
Carboniferous
Organic Chemistry
Prov. 26:8
"As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that giveth honour to a fool."
Moving Sidewalk, Las VegasThe
Carboniferous is a
geologic period and system that extends from the end of the
Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5
Ma (million years ago), to the beginning of the
Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma
The Carboniferous was a time of
glaciation, low sea level and mountain building; a minor marine
extinction event occurred in the middle of the period. The name comes from the Latin word for coal,
carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing". Many beds of coal were laid down all over the world during this period, hence the name.
A global drop in
sea level at the end of the Devonian reversed early in the Carboniferous; this created the widespread epicontinental seas and
carbonate deposition of the Mississippian.
[7] There was also a drop in south polar temperatures; southern
Gondwanaland was
glaciated throughout the period, though it is uncertain if the ice sheets were a holdover from the Devonian or not.
[8] These conditions apparently had little effect in the deep tropics, where lush coal swamps flourished within 30 degrees of the northernmost
glaciersA mid-Carboniferous drop in sea-level precipitated a major marine extinction, one that hit
crinoids and
ammonites especially hard.
[8] This sea-level drop and the associated
unconformity in North America separate the Mississippian period from the Pennsylvanian period.
[8] This happened about 320 million years ago
[10], at the onset of the
Permo-Carboniferous GlaciationThe Carboniferous was a time of active mountain-building, as the supercontinent Pangaea came together. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent Gondwana, which collided with North America–Europe (Laurussia) along the present line of eastern North America. This continental collision resulted in the Hercynian orogeny in Europe, and the Alleghenian orogeny in North America; it also extended the newly-uplifted Appalachians southwestward as the Ouachita Mountains.[12] In the same time frame, much of present eastern Eurasian plate welded itself to Europe along the line of the Ural mountains. Most of the Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangea was now assembled, although North China (which would collide in the Latest Carboniferous), and South China continents were still separated from Laurasia. The Late Carboniferous Pangaea was shaped like an "O."
There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous—
Panthalassa and
Paleo-Tethys, which was inside the "O" in the Carboniferous Pangaea. Other minor oceans were shrinking and eventually closed -
Rheic Ocean (closed by the assembly of
South and
North America), the small, shallow
Ural Ocean (which was closed by the collision of
Baltica and Siberia continents, creating the
Ural Mountains) and
Proto-Tethys Ocean (closed by
North China collision with
Siberia/
Kazakhstania).
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