Why were conditions during the Carboniferous period so ideal for forests?
Why were conditions during this time so ideal for forest? The overall climate was warm, Glaciers retreated, & much of the land was near the equator.
What did the forest environments develop into during the Carboniferous Period?
Characteristic of the Carboniferous period (from about 360 million to 300 million years ago) were its dense and swampy forests, which gave rise to large deposits of peat. Over the eons the peat transformed into rich coal stores in Western Europe and North America.
What new form of life evolved during Carboniferous period?
Biologically, we see one of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous: the amniote egg, which allowed for the further exploitation of the land by certain tetrapods. It gave the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles the ability to lay their eggs on land without fear of desiccation.
What evolved during the Carboniferous Period?
Characteristic of the Carboniferous period (from about 360 million to 300 million years ago) were its dense and swampy forests, which gave rise to large deposits of peat. Over the eons the peat transformed into rich coal stores in Western Europe and North America.
What animals or life forms lived during Carboniferous?
Animals of the Carboniferous Period include amphibians, which became the dominant land vertebrates; sharks, which dominated the oceans; arthropods, which grew to much bigger sizes than today; and amniotes, the ancestors of modern reptiles, birds, and mammals.Aug 9, 2022
What was one of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous period?
One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous was the amniote egg, which allowed the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles to reproduce on land.
What organisms flourished during the Carboniferous Period?
Ferns and sphenopsids became more important later during the Carboniferous, and the earliest relatives of the conifers appeared. The first land snails appeared, and insects with wings that can't fold back such as dragonflies and mayflies flourished and radiated.
What was the environment like during the Carboniferous period?
Early in the Carboniferous Period, Earth's climate was warm. Later, glaciers formed at the poles, while equatorial regions were often warm and humid. Earth's climate became similar to today's, shifting between glacial and interglacial periods.
What was the ocean like during the Carboniferous Period?
Many fish inhabited the Carboniferous seas; predominantly Elasmobranchs (sharks and their relatives). These included some, like Psammodus, with crushing pavement-like teeth adapted for grinding the shells of brachiopods, crustaceans, and other marine organisms.
What did a forest look like in the Carboniferous period?
Carboniferous forests were composed of lycopsids (club mosses), sphenopsids (horse tails), and ferns; in the mid- to late-Carboniferous, progymnosperms and early seeds plants appeared at tropical latitudes as ferns overtook lycopsids and sphenopsids to become the dominant plants in the forests.Jul 8, 2013
What did trees look like millions of years ago?
From a distance, the trees would have looked like palms, with bases up to a metre in diameter. There were no leaves as such, just branched twig-like appendages which presumably had a photosynthetic function in the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere of those times.Oct 23, 2017