The+Time+of+the+Carboniferous

Mz. Spongeboblover 12/7/11

In The Time Of The Carboniferous

During the time Carboniferous period many changes are happening. The Carboniferous period is also named the “Age Of The Amphibians” and a “Carbon bearing” time. The carbon-bearing period took place 345-290 million years ago. There was seven other parts to the Carboniferous time there was the late: Gzelian, Kusmovian, Moscovian and Bashkivian. Then there was late: Serpukhovian, Visean, and Taurnasian. The Carboniferous took place in the Paleozoic era. Before the carboniferous was the Devonian time they had many sea animals and they also had insects it began 408 million years ago. After the Carboniferous period there was the Permian period and they took place 286 million years ago. The Permian period contained many sea animals on called the Coelacanth and the youngest fossils and 136 million years old.

During the c arboniferous period everything was different. Imagine the world barely split up imagine it as a separating super continent. Although it was one big landscape it was slowly separating and there were names for the areas of distant lands. The main land the c arboniferous lived on was Larussia, what is now Europe and North America and Gondwana land, which is now Africa and South America. Ther e were two names for the different parts of c arboniferous. There's the Pennsylvanian and the Mississippian. The Pennsylvanian was the upper U.S. Carboniferous and the Mississippian was the lower U.S. Carboniferous. Because there were different continents and with that there were different climates. The climate in Gondwana was cold and in Larussia it was tropic and humid all year ‘round which is opposite from now. Although the geography may not seem very important it was, because it determined climate, which determined what lived there and why.

With all of the moving land it causes plate tectonics to shift. This land movement created many side effects. There was a collision between Larussia and Gondwana that created the Ural Mountains. After that ch ina was formed because of micro-continents and Siberia. The collision also created the Appalachian <range type="comment" id="842048">Mountains <range type="comment" id="306609">a ll of that as Gondwana shifted towards the equator. The main<range type="comment" id="741536"> fossil formed in the carboniferous time was coal. When underwater plant material cannot fully decompose it sinks i  nto the mud and silt, the heat and pressure the transforms it into coal from this Carbon-full matter. Carboniferous period was a coal bearing time<range type="comment" id="107057">, <range type="comment" id="65024">o ther fossils were: Dunbarella, Archimedes, and<range type="comment" id="59737"> limestone. The tuatara is a lizard and its fossils are <range type="comment" id="547704">found on every continent besides Antarctica. Fossils are very precious and are created overtime. If you’re lucky maybe one day you’ll find a fossil.

In the <range type="comment" id="580218">c arboniferous period the dominating life forms were centipedes, scorpions, cockroaches, dragonflies, amphibians and reptiles. The insects were huge, bigger than now, WAY bigger than now. The horsetails grew to heights of 50-100 feet in swamps. The wingspans of dragonflies grew to up to two feet. The millipedes grew up to six feet in length. There was also starfish, gastropods, land snails, bony fishes, turtles, and lizards.

But animals are __not__ the only biotic life, plants were also very import ant. Ferns were very important in the prehistoric life they are the oldest plants alive. They grew up to 65 feet in length and they were long and lacy. There's about 10,000 species of ferns and they’re grown everywhere except for deserts and cold areas. They grow mostly in damp shady areas, by streams and in the woods, & cracks and overhangs in cliffs. <range type="comment" id="578013">Many people grow them in gardens because they are admired for their beauty. Horsetails were also plants that grew in damp places or germinated. They contain silica or scouring rush, which was once used to polish metal they resemble a small tree and some even grew to be big trees. Club moss was not actually moss it’s a family of plants that looks like moss it is closer to quillwort than to moss. And it grows to 1 foot (30 cm).

Cockroaches were very pesky insects/animals. They have six legs and are known as night bugs. They are unaffected by lots of radiation, they are also immune to a lot of poisons and they have very hard shells. They devour almost everything even walls. 300 million years ago they were abundantly alive.

In reflection, this project was an amazing experience, it helped me understand everything <range type="comment" id="369241">i was curious about. I had no clue what the Carboniferous or any of the geologic times __**REALLY**__ were. This project helped me understand and master the <range type="comment" id="328230">c arboniferous period.I liked the fact that everything in this time was so much bigger than it is now. What I found difficult was the research and having to be dedicated to your project and making your bibliography correctly. This project helped me learn how life was before we were around and I really enjoyed it

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