The Coniferous Period Mini Research Project

References

Interesting Fact #4

Interesting Fact #3

Interesting Fact #2

Interesting Fact #1

What major event occurred?

What was the world like?

The Carboniferous Period was 358.9 - 298.9 million years ago.

Carboniferous Period

Krause, A. J., Mills, B. J. W., Zhang, S., Planavsky, N. J., Lenton, T. M., & Poulton, S. W. (2018). Stepwise oxygenation of the Paleozoic atmosphere. Nature Communications, 9, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06383-yion: Stine, J. M. G., Feinberg, J. M., Huttenlocker, A. K., Irmis, R. B., Ramirez, D., Doctor, R., McDaris, J., Henderson, C. M., Read, M. T., Kristina, B. S., Noren, A., O'Grady, R., Sloo, A., Steury, P., Fernandez, D. P., Henrici, A. C., & Tabor, N. J. (2024). Paleozoic Equatorial Records of Melting Ice Ages (PERMIA): calibrating the pace of paleotropical environmental and ecological change during Earth's previous icehouse. Scientific Drilling, 33(2), 109-128. https://doi.org/10.5194/sd-33-109-2024

* The climate was warm and humid. * Oxygen in the atmosphere increased. * This allowed dense forests and swamps to spread across the continents. * Oxygen was good for the arthropods which got huge during this period. * Increased amounts of oxygen may have contributed to the radiation of diverse animals during this time (Krause, et al, 2018).

The landmass of Pangea was so big that it was impossible for moisture to reach inland from the ocean. This led to the wipe-out of much of the forests about 305 million years ago (this is known as the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse). By 290 million years ago, much of the rainforests were replaced by a giant desert.

During this period, the continents merged into a supercontinent called Pangea.

The Carboniferous Period was during The Paleozoic Era in the Phanerozoic Eon. The Phanerozoic Eon was 541 million years ago to present. This name means “visible life.” This eon is when life became obvious.

The mass extinction was possibly caused by a series of drops in oxygen levels in the seas. This caused all the placoderms (large aromored fish) that began to take over the seas during the Devonion Period to disappear.

The Carboniferous Period began after the mass extinction of the Devonian Period.

Stine et al (2024) say that the loss of freshwater and cold swamp habitats that occurred during the end of the Carboniferous Period changed ecosystems from a combination of both land and aquatic animals to an ecosystem mostly comprised of land animals in the next period called the Permian Period.