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The Carboniferous rainforest collapse was caused by a cooler drier climate that initially fragmented, then collapsed the rainforest ecosystem. [2] During most of the rest of Carboniferous times, the coal forests were mainly restricted to refugia in North America (such as the Appalachian and Illinois coal basins) and central Europe.
Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
Coal forms when organic matter builds up in waterlogged, anoxic swamps, known as peat mires, and is then buried, compressing the peat into coal. The majority of Earth's coal deposits were formed during the late Carboniferous and early Permian. The plants from which they formed contributed to changes in the Carboniferous Earth's atmosphere. [25]
Coal Group 45 lies at the base of the Joggins Formation, and though the section assigned to this group stretches 3.1 m (10 ft 2 in) from start to finish, only 7.6 cm (3.0 in) of this actually represents basal coal. Two of the most heavily mined deposits of coal - the Fundy Seam and Dirty Seam - are part of the Joggins Formation.
Plant fossils (and coal deposits as a whole) are uncommon in the following "Cantabrian" substage of the Stephanian Stage. [3] The end of the Asturian is a topic of strong debate; most estimates place the Westphalian-Stephanian boundary before the start of the Kasimovian global stage (~307 Ma), [ 6 ] [ 4 ] [ 3 ] whereas a few place the boundary ...
The Pennine Coal Measures Group is preceded (underlain) by the Millstone Grit Group which is of Namurian age. It is succeeded (overlain) by the Warwickshire Group which comprises a largely non-productive sequence of red beds. [3] [4] Descriptions of the coal seams are found within (or linked from) articles on the individual coalfields. Many of ...
Vast deposits of coal formed in wetlands—called coal forests—that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. [37] [38] Bituminous coal is predominantly Carboniferous in age. [3] [39] Most bituminous coal in the United States is between 100 and 300 million years old. [40]
In lithostratigraphy, coal measures are coal-bearing strata, with the term typically applied to European units of the Upper Carboniferous System. In the United Kingdom, the term is equivalent to regional components of the Westphalian -age Coal Measures Group .