Carboniferous period

You may be surprised that coal is compared to diamond. In many ways coal is more useful than diamond. There are two major coal forming periods The carboniferous period (-500 r -V.- l A - . V - - - r - < ... 

The earliest known moss fossil is from the early Carboniferous period, about 320 million years ago. Mosses are not well-represented in the fossil record because their soft tissue is not well preserved. An examination of extant species indicates that bryophytes are a polyphyletic group. They appear to have evolved from more than one ancestral line. 

Carboniferous limestone was deposited in the Carboniferous period 286 to 360 million years ago. 

The Silurian and Early Devonian organic matter is typically sapropelic, mixed, and humic (Fig. 5.3). It was intensely generating hydrocarbons in the south of the region in the Paleozoic, and in the areas of the other basins in the Mesozoic. At present, the organic matter may presumably persist either at the end of the oil window, or in the gas window and low-molecular hydrocarbons. The radioactive shales of the Early Silurian are good source rocks in the central and north-eastern areas of the region. The Late Devonian and Carboniferous periods have provided satisfactory source rocks in the south-west and north-east of the region. 

By the end of the Late Carboniferous period, when the sedimentation cycle was entering its final stage, the highest paleotemperatures were recorded in the south and south-west of the region, reaching 80 °C at the top and 125 °C at the bottom of the Gedinnian sediments. The lowest temperatures were observed in the north of the region 80 C at the Ordovician bottom and 50 °C at the Silurian bottom. By the end of the Cenomanian age, the paleotemperatures rose from 100 to 125 °C at the Silurian bottom and from 80 to no °C at the Devonian. At the present time, the temperature remains at the same level, except for the north-western and south-western areas where it reaches 130-150 °C. 

Fireclays are sedimentary clays that were laid down in the Carboniferous Period, most of them being found in the Coal Measures. Although the name fireclay suggests a clay that can withstand heat (i.e. a refractory clay) a large proportion of the so-called fireclays are not very refractory, but are used for making sanitary fireclay, buff tiles, engineering bricks, etc. 

Clubmosses (Lycopodiatae or Lycopodiophytina). A class of the Pteridophyta ( pteridophytes ferns) with three recent orders Lycopodiales lycopods), Selagi-nellales selaginella), and Isoetales quillworts), with one family each. The exclusively herbaceous plants have small or narrow to scale-like leaves (=micro-phy 11a). They were particularly highly developed in the Carboniferous period (see pteridophytes ferns (Fili-catae)). 

Tashan coal mine was designed as 20 Mt/a. The coal seam is compound coalbed with a thickness of 17 m, which covers Jurassic and permo-carboniferous period. The coal is easily combustible. 

Cycadofiiicaies (Pteridospermales seed ferns) An extinct order of gymnosperms that flourished in the Carboniferous period. They possessed characteristics of both the ferns and the seed plants in reproducing by means of seeds and yet retaining femlike leaves. Their intemail anatomy combined both fern and seed-plant characteristics. 

Coal formation began during the Carboniferous Period (known as the first coal age), which spanned 360 to 290 million years before present. The Carboniferous Period is divided into two parts. The Lower Carboniferous, also called the Mississippian, began approximately 360 million years ago and ended 310 million years ago. The Upper Carboniferous, or Pennsylvanian, extended from about 310 to 290 million years ago, the beginning of the Permian Period. 

The major areas of coal distribution are principally in the Northern Hanisphere with the exception of Australia, the southern continents are relatively deficient in coal deposits. This relatively uneven distribution is the result of the deposition and maturation of the plant at different times in the geological past in predominantly tropical latitudes, and the subseqnent drift of the continents to their present-day positions. The oldest coals of any economic significance date from the Middle Carboniferous Period— the earliest geological strata in which coal has been identified are of Devonian age bnt they are generally of little economic significance. With the exception of parts of the Triassic Period, major coal deposits have been forming somewhere in the world throughout the last 320 million years. Sedimentary sequences of the last 2-3 million years do not contain coal— there has been insufficient time for them to develop from plant debris. 

It should be noted, however, that deposits of vegetable matter are not limited to any particular era or period, but while these deposits occur even in pre-Cambrian rocks, the plants (i.e., terrestrial plants) that were eventually to become coal were not sufficiently abundant until the Devonian Period and it appears that such deposits really became significant during the Carboniferous Period. 

Coal formation began during the Carboniferous Period, which is known as the first coal age and major coal deposits were formed in every geological period since the Upper Carboniferous Period, 270-350 million years ago. 

Coal is the compacted and preserved ranains of plant matter and when plant life containing cellulose-rich stems and leaves is highly abundant and special conditions exist (usually anaerobic conditions)—the plant matter does not totally decompose and is preserved in fossilized form. These types of plants had evolved by the Devonian Period and many coal deposits in Europe and North America date from the Carboniferous Periods of the Paleozoic when these areas were covered with forests dominated by large ferns and scale trees. 

Of course, the uncertainty increases as we go further back in time. The common ancestry of the and y-chains is placed at the beginning of the Carboniferous period, that is, about at the time of the first amphibians. Differences between fetal and adult hemoglobins have however been found also in contemporary fish (Manwell, 1957, 1958a). It is conceivable that these have arisen from a gene duplication independent of the one that led to the differentiation of jS- and 7-chains. 

Brown coal was formed less than 100 million years ago in the Tertiary, a geological period thought to have covered the time between 65 and 2-3 million years ago. Black coal mainly was formed in the Carboniferous period, ranging from about 345 to 280 million years ago. 

Plants ability to evolve and build new structures with oxygen almost drove the planet out of chemical balance 200 million years after the Cambrian explosion. This later period of time is the Carboniferous period. It is as distinct in the fossil record as the Cambrian, and it coincided with a rise in oxygen levels. 

The Cambrian explosion and the Carboniferous period followed the same pattern of making and breaking, but a different type of biological expansion appears in each. In the Carboniferous, organisms grew big, while in the Cambrian, they grew different shapes. The Carboniferous explosion was more quantitative, the Cambrian more qualitative. 1 think this was because the Cambrian explosion had an additional chemical boost that promoted biological invention an increase in dissolved calcium. 

Primitive insects date from the Carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era, or several hundred million years ago (2). Arthropods, which include the Class... 

The Earth s atmosphere contains about 0.03% by volume of CO2, and the equilibrium in Equation 10.2 means that rain falling through even unpolluted skies will be slightly acidic. CO2 is produced by respiration of plants and animals, but is used by plants in the photosynthesis of carbohydrates. The fossilization of plants in the Carboniferous Period (354-290 million years ago) was responsible for the production of coal. Marine organisms use forms of calcium carbonate (calcite and aragonite) in their exoskeletons. An example of the role of this biomineral in protection is shown in Figure 10.15. Some of these organisms live in coral reefs, but others swim about in the sea, and when they die their shells fall to the sea bed. 

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