Overview - Timescale, Physical Landscapes

The rocks that were formed or deposited during the period constitute the Carboniferous System. The name Carboniferous refers to coal-bearing strata that characterize the upper portion of the series throughout the world.



Phanerozoic Eon

• Paleozoic Era
  
  • Mississippian sub-period
    
    • Lower
      
      • Tournaisian
        
      
      
      
    
    
    • Middle
      
      • Visean
        
      
      
      
    
    
    • Upper
      
      • Serpukhovian
        
      
      
      
    
    
    
  
  
  • Pennsylvanian Sub-period
    
    • Lower
      
      • Bashkirian
        
      
      
      
    
    
    • Middle
      
      • Moscovian
        
      
      
      
    
    
    • Upper
      
      • Kasimovian
        
      • Gzhelian
        
      
      
      
    
    
    
  
  
  

In the Late Carboniferous epoch, plate movements brought most of the continent of Larussia into contact with Gondwana, closing off the Tethys. The Laurentian and Gondwana were united by the Appalachian-Helsinki orogenic belt, which lasted until the Permian. The land masses that became eastern America and northern Europe were located at the equator, while the cratons of China and Siberia continued to exist in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere.

Widespread ice sheets across Gondwana caused sea levels to rise and fall through expansion and contraction, creating the cyclic sedimentation that characterized the Late Carboniferous.

The migration of Gondwana to the Paleo-Equator closed the remaining valleys in the Tethys Sea and formed the Ouachita, southern Appalachians, Hercynide and Mauritanide mountains. These events continued the formation of the supercontinent Pangea, which would eventually end in the Permian.

In the Cordilleran region of present-day America, a less significant orogenic event occurred, the Antler Orogenic Belt pulse that uplifted the ancestral Rocky Mountains.