Plants of the Carboniferous. Carboniferous period (Carboniferous). Sedimentation in the Carboniferous

The Carboniferous period is the period of the Earth, when forests of real trees turned green on it. already existed on earth herbaceous plants and plants resembling bushes. However, forty-meter giants with trunks up to two meters thick have appeared only now. They had powerful rhizomes, allowing the trees to hold firmly in soft, moisture-saturated soil. The ends of their branches were decorated with bunches of meter-long pinnate leaves, on the tips of which fruit buds grew, and then spores developed.
The emergence of forests became possible due to the fact that in the Carboniferous a new offensive of the sea began on land. The vast expanses of the continents in the Northern Hemisphere turned into marshy lowlands, and the climate remained hot as before. Under such conditions, vegetation developed unusually rapidly. The forest of the Carboniferous period looked rather gloomy. Stuffiness and eternal twilight reigned under the crowns of huge trees. The soil was a marshy bog, saturating the air with heavy vapors. In the thickets of calamites and sigillaria floundered clumsy creatures resembling salamanders in appearance, but many times their size - ancient amphibians.
Kordaites
Cordaites reproduced by seeds that matured in special organs - strobili, collected in earrings. These earrings were the prototype of real flowers, which appeared much later. The descendants of club mosses, lepidodendrons, had a ribbed trunk with a bark pierced by a network of air channels. The scars on the trunks were traces of fallen leaves and retained a diamond shape. And in sigillaria, covered with foliage resembling bristles, the scars on the trunks were hexagonal. The wood of these plants did not yet have annual rings, since there were no noticeable differences between seasons.

Kalamita
In the air, heavy with moisture, gigantic, with a wingspan of up to a meter, predatory dragonflies swept; huge spiders, similar to modern harvesters, hid in the dark, waiting for prey. Scorpions and cockroaches the size of a lap dog came across at every turn. Carboniferous insects had much in common with trilobites in their structure. But they did not originate from trilobites, but from terrestrial arthropods. Ferns reached an unprecedented flourishing of the Carboniferous period. They were found everywhere - both in forests and in meadows. These were the plants of the Carboniferous period of the most various forms and coloring from light green to almost black. Many of them have become mighty trees with a thick trunk and dense feathery crown.
Neither earlier nor later on Earth was there such a variety of vegetation as the flora of the Carboniferous period had. But, like all living things, the plants of the Carboniferous period completed their development and died. Their remains fell into the shallow water of the lagoons, dragged on with silt, and various microorganisms began their unhurried work in these accumulations of organic matter. Plant residues were fermented, a large amount of gas was released, and organic matter was charred.
After millions of years, the plants of the carbon forests have turned into coal of various kinds. Where once there were thickets of horsetails, coal with a high sulfur content is now mined; from algae and aquatic plants layers of coals with a high content of paraffin were formed. Fat coals, coals with a long flame, coking coals - the grades of coal depend on the composition of the plants from which they were formed.
Over time, the coal seams were covered with layers of clay and shale, and many of them perfectly preserved the imprints of leaves, branches, seeds and other plant organs of the Carboniferous period. Coal deposits now resemble a grandiose layer cake, occupying entire regions of the land.

Also, one cannot leave aside the xenacanthids, which represented a detachment of sharks. Their sizes were quite small, the maximum length was 3 m. Most of all, the researchers managed to get information about the pleura. They are known to have lived in fresh waters America, Europe and Australia. Despite their relatively small size, they posed a threat to acanthodia. He dismembered fish with his sharp teeth. It was not difficult to catch an individual, since this species lived in a flock. Scientists believe that there was a membrane between the laid eggs. Its dimensions were very small, only 40 cm. But half of this length was occupied by the snout. Scientists themselves do not know what role this part of the body played in nature. Perhaps the animal was looking for food due to poor eyesight. These individuals were found both in salt and fresh waters.
The Carboniferous period brought changes to the life of insects. After all, it was in carbon that they began to fly. For comparison, we note that the bird first took to the air after 150 million years. Dragonflies of the Carboniferous period acquired a wonderful appearance. After some time, they became the kings of the air and often met near the swamps. In some individuals, the wingspan reached 90 cm. After that, butterflies, grasshoppers and moths took to the air.
It is interesting to learn how insects began to fly. You may have encountered very small and harmless insects in the damp parts of the kitchen. So they are called scales. If we examined these individuals under a microscope, we would notice tiny plates that look like flaps. Most likely, the dragonfly was able to straighten the plate in order to warm up in the morning. Well, later the insect used this part of the body to its full potential.
Amphibians of the Carboniferous period began their lives. In the process of evolution, they turned from lobe-finned fish. From that moment there appeared new class- reptiles. To date, the most common detachment of caudate. They have retained their original appearance.
Interesting changes have taken place in terms of relief. All land was collected in 2 continents: Gondwana and Laurasia. Carboniferous period Paleozoic era characterized by the constant convergence of these parts of the land surface of the Earth. After their collision formed mountain ranges. Let us also note the climate of the Carboniferous period, which became noticeably colder.

Tsimbal Vladimir Anatolyevich is a lover and collector of plants. For many years he has been engaged in the morphology, physiology and history of plants, and has been conducting educational work.

In his book, the author invites us into the amazing and sometimes mysterious world of plants. Accessible and simple, even for an unprepared reader, the book tells about the structure of plants, the laws of their life, the history of the plant world. In a fascinating, almost detective form, the author talks about many mysteries and hypotheses related to the study of plants, their origin and development.

The book contains a large number of drawings and photographs by the author and is intended for a wide range of readers.

All drawings and photographs in the book belong to the author.

The publication was prepared with the support of the Dmitry Zimin Dynasty Foundation.

The Dynasty Foundation for Non-Commercial Programs was founded in 2001 by Dmitry Borisovich Zimin, Honorary President of Vimpelcom. The priority areas of the Foundation's activities are support for fundamental science and education in Russia, popularization of science and education.

“Library of the Dynasty Foundation” is a project of the Foundation for the publication of modern popular science books selected by expert scientists. The book you are holding in your hands was published under the auspices of this project.

More detailed information You can find information about the Dynasty Foundation at www.dynastyfdn.ru.

On the cover - Ginkgo biloba (Ginkgo biloba) against the background of the imprint of a leaf of the probable ancestor of Ginkgo - Psygmophyllum expansum.

Book:

Sections on this page:

The next period in the history of the Earth is the Carboniferous or, as it is often called, Carboniferous. One should not think that, for some magical reason, the change in the name of the period entails changes in the plant and animal world. No, the plant worlds of the Early Carboniferous and Late Devonian are not much different. Even in the Devonian, higher plants of all divisions, except for angiosperms, appeared. During the Carboniferous period, they further development and flourish.

One of the important events that took place in the Carboniferous period was the emergence of various plant communities in different geographic areas. What does this mean?

At the beginning of the Carboniferous, it is difficult to find the difference between the plants of Europe, America, Asia. Unless there are some minor differences between the plants of the northern and southern hemispheres. But by the middle of the period, several areas with their own set of genera and species are clearly distinguished. Unfortunately, the opinion is still very widespread that the Carboniferous is the time of a universally warm humid climate, when the whole Earth was covered with forests of huge, up to 30 m high, lycopsform - lepidodendrons and sigillaria, and huge tree-like "horsetails" - calamites and ferns. All this luxurious vegetation grew in swamps, where, after death, it formed deposits of coal. Well, to complete the picture, we must add giant dragonflies - meganevr and two-meter herbivorous centipedes.

It wasn't quite right. More precisely, it was not so everywhere. The fact is that in the Carboniferous, as now, the Earth was just as spherical and also rotated around its axis and revolved around the Sun. This means that even then on Earth along the equator there was a belt of hot tropical climate, and closer to the poles it is cooler. Moreover, in the deposits of the end of the Carboniferous in the southern hemisphere, undoubted traces of very powerful glaciers were found. Why, even in textbooks, are we still told about the “warm and humid swamp”?

Such an idea of ​​the Carboniferous period was formed back in the 19th century, when paleontologists and, in particular, paleobotanists, only fossils from Europe were known. And Europe, like America, was in the tropics in the Carboniferous period. But to judge the flora and fauna only by one tropical zone, to put it mildly, is not entirely correct. Imagine that some paleobotanist after many millions of years, having excavated the remains of the current tundra vegetation, will make a report on the topic “The flora of the Earth Quaternary period". According to his report, it turns out that you and I, dear reader, live in extremely harsh conditions. That the whole Earth is covered with an extremely poor flora, consisting mainly of lichens and mosses. Only in some places unfortunate people can stumble upon a dwarf birch and rare blueberry bushes. After describing such a bleak picture, our distant descendant will certainly conclude that a very cold climate prevailed on Earth everywhere, and will decide that the reason for this is the low content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, low volcanic activity, or, in extreme cases, in some another meteorite that shifted the earth's axis.

Unfortunately, this is the usual approach to the climates and inhabitants of the distant past. Instead of trying to collect and study samples of fossil plants from different regions of the Earth, find out which of them grew at the same time, and analyze the data obtained, although, of course, this is difficult and requires a significant investment of effort and time, a person seeks to disseminate that knowledge , which he received by watching the growth of a room palm in the living room, for the entire history of plants.

But we still note that in the Carboniferous period, approximately at the end of the Early Carboniferous, scientists already distinguish at least three large areas with different vegetation. This region is tropical - Euramerian, northern extratropical - Angara region or Angarida and southern extratropical - Gondwana region or Gondwana. On modern map of the world Angarida is called Siberia, and Gondwana is the united Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia and the Indian subcontinent. The Euramerian region is, as the name implies, Europe together with North America. The vegetation of these areas varied greatly. So, if spore plants dominated in the Euramerian region, then in Gondwana and Angara, starting from the middle of the Carboniferous, gymnosperms dominated. Moreover, the difference in the floras of these areas increased during the entire Carboniferous and at the beginning of the Permian.

What other important events took place in the plant kingdom of the Carboniferous period? It is necessary to note the appearance of the first conifers in the middle of the Carboniferous. When we talk about conifers, our familiar pines and spruces automatically come to mind. But coniferous carbons were a little different. These were, apparently, low, up to 10 meters, trees; By appearance they slightly resembled modern araucaria. The structure of their cones was different. These ancient conifers grew, probably in relatively dry places, and descended from ... it is not yet known what ancestors. Again, the point of view accepted by almost all scientists on this issue is as follows: conifers descended from cordaites. Kordaites, which appeared, apparently, at the beginning of the Carboniferous period, and also descended from no one knows who, are very interesting and peculiar plants (Fig. 8). These were trees with leathery, lanceolate leaves collected in bunches at the ends of the shoots, sometimes very large, up to a meter long. The reproductive organs of cordaites were long thirty-centimeter shoots with male or female cones sitting on them. It should be noted that the cordaites were very different. There were also tall, slender trees, and there were inhabitants of shallow waters - plants with well-developed aerial roots, similar to modern inhabitants of mangroves. Among them were bushes.

In the Carboniferous, the first remains of cycads (or cycads) were also found - gymnosperms, not numerous today, but very common in the Mesozoic era following the Paleozoic.

As you can see, the future "conquerors" of the Earth - conifers, cycads, some pteridosperms existed for a long time under the canopy of coal forests and accumulated strength for a decisive offensive.

Of course, you noticed the name "seed ferns". What are these plants? After all, if there are seeds, then the plant cannot be a fern. That's right, the name is perhaps not very successful. After all, we don't call amphibians "fish with legs." But this name very well shows the confusion experienced by scientists who discovered and studied these plants.

This name was proposed at the beginning of the 20th century by the outstanding English paleobotanists F. Oliver and D. Scott, who, studying the remains of plants of the Carboniferous period, which were considered ferns, found that seeds were attached to leaves similar to the leaves of modern ferns. These seeds sat at the ends of the feathers or directly on the rachis of the leaf, as in the leaves of the genus Alethopteris(photo 22). Then it turned out that most of the plants of the coal forests, which were previously taken for ferns, are seed plants. It was a good lesson. Firstly, this meant that in the past there lived plants completely different from modern ones, and secondly, scientists realized how deceptive external signs of similarity can be. Oliver and Scott gave this group of plants the name "pteridosperms", which means "seed ferns". The names of the genera with the ending - pteris(in translation - a feather), which, according to tradition, were given to the leaves of ferns, remained. So the leaves of the gymnosperms got "fern" names: Alethopteris, Glossopteris and many others.

But worse was the fact that after the discovery of pteridosperms, all gymnosperms, not similar to modern ones, began to be attributed to seed ferns. Peltasperms, a group of plants with seeds attached to an umbrella-shaped disk - peltoid (from the Greek "peltos" - shield) on its lower side, and Caytoniums, in which the seeds were hidden in a closed capsule, and even glossopterids were also taken there. In general, if the plant was seed, but did not "climb" into any of the existing groups, then it was immediately ranked among the pteridosperms. As a result, almost all the huge variety of ancient gymnosperms turned out to be united under one name - pteridosperms. If we follow this approach, then, without a doubt, it is necessary to attribute both modern ginkgo and cycads to seed ferns. Now seed ferns are considered by most paleobotanists to be a team, a formal group. However, the class Pteridospermopsida exists even now. But we will agree to call pteridosperms only gymnosperms with single seeds attached directly to a pinnately dissected fern-like leaf.

There is another group of gymnosperms that appeared in the Carboniferous - glossopterids. These plants covered the vastness of Gondwana. Their remains were found in deposits of the Middle and Late Carboniferous, as well as the Permian in all southern continents, including India, which was then in the southern hemisphere. We will talk about these peculiar plants in more detail a little later, since the time of their heyday is the Permian period following the Carboniferous.

The leaves of these plants (photo 24) were similar, at first glance, to the leaves of the Euramerian cordaites, although in the Angara species they are usually smaller and differ in microstructural features. But the reproductive organs are fundamentally different. In Angara plants, the organs that carried the seeds are more reminiscent of coniferous cones, although of a very peculiar kind that is not found today. Previously, these plants, voinovsky, were classified as cordaites. Now they are distinguished in a separate order, and in the recent publication “The Great Turning Point in the History of the Plant World” S. V. Naugolnykh even places them in a separate class. Thus, in the department of gymnosperms, along with the already listed classes, such as conifers or cycads, another one appears - Voynovskaya. These peculiar plants appeared at the end of the Carboniferous, but grew widely throughout almost the entire territory of Angara in the Permian period.

What else needs to be said about the Carboniferous period? Well, perhaps, the fact that he got his name for the reason that the main reserves of coal in Europe were formed at that time. But in other places, in particular, in Gondwana and Angarida, deposits of coal were formed, for the most part, in the next, Permian period.

Generally speaking, the flora of the Carboniferous period was very rich, interesting and varied and, for sure, deserves more detailed description. The landscapes of the Carboniferous period must have looked absolutely fantastic and unusual for us. Thanks to artists such as Z. Burian, who depicted the worlds of the past, we can now imagine the Carboniferous forests. But, knowing a little more about ancient plants and the climate of those times, we can imagine other, completely “alien” landscapes. For example, forests of small, two to three meters high, slender straight tree-like club mosses on a polar night, not far from north pole that time, in the present extreme north-east of our country.

Here is how S. V. Meyen describes this picture in his book “Traces of Indian Grass”: “A warm arctic night was coming. It was in this darkness that the thickets of lycopsids stood.

Strange landscape! It's hard to imagine it... Along the banks of rivers and lakes, a dull brush of sticks of various sizes stretches. Some collapsed. The water picks them up and carries them, knocks them down in heaps in the backwaters. In some places, the brush is interrupted by thickets of fern-like plants with rounded feather-leaves ... There probably hasn't been autumn leaf fall yet. Together with these plants, you will never meet either the bones of any quadruped, or the wing of an insect. It was quiet in the bushes."

But we still have a lot of interesting things ahead of us. Let's hasten further, to the last period of the Paleozoic era, or the era of ancient life, to Perm.

In the early Carboniferous, the climate over most of the earth's land surface was almost tropical. Huge areas were occupied by shallow coastal seas, and the sea constantly flooded the low coastal plains, forming vast swamps there. In this warm and humid climate, virgin forests of giant tree ferns and early seed plants are widespread. They released a lot of oxygen, and by the end of the Carboniferous, the oxygen content in the Earth's atmosphere had almost reached its present level.
Some of the trees that grew in these forests reached 45 m in height. The plant mass increased so rapidly that the invertebrates that lived in the soil simply did not have time to eat and decompose the dead plant material in time, and as a result, it became more and more. In the humid climate of the Carboniferous period, thick peat deposits formed from this material. In swamps, peat quickly went under water and turned out to be buried under a layer of sediment. Over time, these sedimentary layers turned into coal-bearing
shchi deposits of sedimentary rocks, interbedded with coal, formed from the petrified remains of plants in peat.

Reconstruction of the coal bog. Many grow here big trees, including sigillaria (1) and giant club mosses (2), as well as dense thickets of calamites (3) and horsetails (4), an ideal habitat for early amphibians like ichthyostega (5) and crinodon (6). Arthropods swarm all around: cockroaches (7) and spiders (8) scurry in the undergrowth, and giant dragonflies meganeurs (9) with an almost meter wingspan plow the air above them. Due to the rapid growth of such forests, a lot of dead leaves and wood accumulated, which sank to the bottom of the marshes before they had time to decompose, and over time turned into peat, and then into coal.
Insects are everywhere

At that time, plants were not the only living organisms that developed land. Arthropods also emerged from the water and gave rise to a new group of arthronodes, which turned out to be extremely viable, insects. Since the very first appearance of insects on the stage of life, their triumphal procession has begun, but
planet. Today there are at least a million known to science species of insects, and, according to some estimates, about 30 million more species remain to be discovered by scientists. Indeed, our time could be called the era of insects.
Insects are very small and can live and hide in places inaccessible to animals and birds. The bodies of insects are designed so that they easily master any means of movement - swimming, crawling, running, jumping, flying. Their hard outer skeleton - cuticle (consisting of a special substance - chitin) -
passes into the oral part, capable of chewing hard leaves, sucking out vegetable juices, and also piercing the skin of animals or biting prey.

HOW COAL IS FORMED.
1. Carboniferous forests grew so fast and wildly that all the dead leaves, branches and trunks of trees that accumulated on the ground simply did not have time to rot. In such "coal bogs" layers of dead plant remains formed deposits of water-soaked peat, which was then compressed and turned into coal.
2. The sea advances on land, forming deposits on it from the remains of marine organisms and layers of silt, which subsequently turn into shale.
3. The sea recedes and the rivers deposit sand on top of the shales, from which sandstones are formed.
4. The terrain becomes more swampy, and silt is deposited on top, suitable for the formation of clayey sandstone.
5. The forest grows again, forming a new coal seam. This alternation of layers of coal, shale and sandstone is called the coal-bearing strata.

Great Carboniferous Forests

Among the lush vegetation of the Carboniferous forests, huge tree-like ferns up to 45 m high, with leaves longer than a meter, prevailed. In addition to them, giant horsetails, club mosses and recently emerged seed-bearing plants grew there. The trees had extremely shallow root system, often branching above the surface
soil, and they grew very close to each other. Probably, everything around was littered with fallen tree trunks and heaps of dead branches and leaves. In this impenetrable jungle, plants grew so rapidly that the so-called ammonifiers (bacteria and fungi) simply could not keep up with the decay of organic remains in the forest soil.
In such a forest it was very warm and humid, and the air was constantly saturated with water vapor. Many backwaters and swamps provided ideal breeding grounds for countless insects and early amphibians. The air was filled with the buzzing and chirping of insects - cockroaches, grasshoppers and giant dragonflies with a wingspan of almost a meter, and the undergrowth was teeming with silverfish, termites and beetles. The first spiders had already appeared, numerous centipedes and scorpions scurried along the forest floor.

Fragment of a fossilized fern Aletopteris from the coal-bearing strata. Ferns thrived in damp and humid Carboniferous forests, but they proved ill-adapted to the more arid climate that developed during the Permian period. Germinating, fern spores form a thin fragile plate of cells - prothallium, in which male and female reproductive organs are produced over time. Prothallium is extremely sensitive to moisture and dries quickly. Moreover, male reproductive cells, spermatozoa, secreted by prothallium, can only reach the female egg through a water film. All this interferes with the spread of ferns, forcing them to stick to a humid habitat, where they are found to this day.
Plants of coal marshes

The flora of these vast forests would seem very strange to us.
Ancient lycopod plants, relatives of modern lycopsins, looked like real trees - 45 m high. Heights up to 20 m reached the top of giant horsetails, strange plants with rings of narrow leaves growing directly from thick articulated stems. There were also ferns the size of a good tree.
These ancient ferns, like their living descendants, could only exist in humid areas. Ferns reproduce by producing hundreds of tiny spores in a hard shell, which are then carried by air currents. But before these spores develop into new ferns, something special must happen. First, tiny fragile gametophytes (plants of the so-called sexual generation) grow from spores. They, in turn, give birth to small cups containing male and female germ cells (sperm and eggs). To swim up to the egg and fertilize it, sperm need a water film. And only then can a new fern develop from a fertilized egg, the so-called sporophyte (asexual generation of the plant life cycle).

Meganeurs were the largest dragonflies that ever lived on Earth. Moisture-saturated coal forests and swamps provided shelter for many smaller flying insects, which served as easy prey for them. The enormous compound eyes of dragonflies give them an almost circular view, allowing them to pick up the slightest movement of a potential prey. Perfectly adapted to aerial hunting, dragonflies over the past hundreds of millions of years have undergone very significant changes.
seed plants

Fragile gametophytes can only survive in very humid places. However, by the end of the Devonian period, seed ferns appeared - a group of plants that managed to overcome this shortcoming. Seed ferns resembled modern cycads or cyatheas in many ways and reproduced in the same way. Their female spores remained on the plants that gave birth to them, and there they formed small flask-shaped structures (archegonia) containing eggs. Instead of floating sperm, seed ferns produced pollen carried by air currents. These pollen grains germinated into female spores and released male germ cells into them, which then fertilized the egg. Now plants could finally master the arid regions of the continents.
The fertilized egg developed inside a cup-shaped structure, the so-called ovule, which then turned into a seed. The seed contained reserves nutrients, and the embryo could germinate quickly.
Some plants had huge cones up to 70 cm long, which contained female spores and formed seeds. Now plants could no longer depend on water, through which previously male sex cells (gametes) had to get to the eggs, and the extremely vulnerable gametophyte stage was excluded from their life cycle.

Warm swamps of the Late Carboniferous abounded with insects and amphibians. Butterflies (1), giant flying cockroaches (2), dragonflies (3) and mayflies (4) fluttered among the trees. Giant bipedal centipedes feasted in the rotting vegetation (5). Centipedes hunted on the forest floor (6). Eogyrinus (7) - large, up to 4.5 m long, amphibian - may have hunted in the manner of an alligator. A 15-cm microbrachia (8) fed on the smallest animal plankton. The tadpole-like Branchiosaurus (9) had gills. Urocordilus (10), Sauropleura (1 1) and Scincosaurus (12) looked more like newts, but the legless dolichosome (13) looked a lot like a snake.
Amphibious time

The bulging eyes and nostrils of the first amphibians were located at the very top of a wide and flat head. Such a "design" turned out to be very useful when swimming on the water surface. Some of the amphibians may have stalked prey half submerged in the water - in the manner of today's crocodiles. Perhaps they looked like giant salamanders. They were formidable predators with hard and sharp teeth, with which they grabbed their prey. A large number of their teeth have been preserved as fossils.
Evolution soon gave rise to many diverse forms of amphibians. Some of them reached 8 m in length. The larger ones still hunted in the water, while their smaller counterparts (microsaurs) were attracted by the abundance of insects on land.
There were amphibians with tiny legs or no legs at all, something like snakes, but without scales. They may have spent their entire lives buried in mud. Microsaurs looked more like small lizards with short teeth, with which they split the covers of insects.

Embryo nile crocodile inside the egg. Such eggs, resistant to desiccation, protect the embryo from shocks and contain enough food in the yolk. These properties of the egg allowed the reptiles to become completely independent of water.
The first reptiles

Towards the end of the Carboniferous, a new group of four-legged animals appeared in the vast forests. Basically, they were small and in many ways resembled modern lizards, which is not surprising: after all, they were the first reptiles (reptiles) on Earth. Their skin, more moisture-resistant than that of amphibians, gave them the opportunity to spend their whole lives out of the water. There was plenty of food for them: worms, centipedes and insects were at their complete disposal. After a relatively short time, more large reptiles, which began to eat their smaller relatives.

Everyone has their own pond

Reptiles no longer need to return to the water to breed. Instead of throwing soft eggs that hatched into floating tadpoles, these animals began to lay eggs in a hard, leathery shell. The hatchlings hatched from them were exact miniature copies of their parents. Inside each egg there was a small sac filled with water, where the embryo itself was placed, another sac with the yolk on which it ate, and finally a third sac where the feces accumulated. This shock-absorbing layer of liquid also protected the fetus from shock and damage. The yolk contained many nutrients, and by the time the baby hatched, he no longer needed a reservoir (instead of a bag) for ripening: he was already old enough to get his own food in the forest.
rum. If you move them up and down, you could warm up even faster - let's say you and I warm up when running in place. These "flaps" got bigger and bigger, and the insect began to use them to glide from tree to tree, possibly escaping predators such as spiders.

FIRST FLIGHT
Carboniferous insects were the first creatures to take to the air, and they did so 150 million years before birds. Dragonflies were the pioneers. Soon they turned into the "kings of the air" coal marshes. The wingspan of some dragonflies reached almost a meter. Butterflies, moths, beetles and grasshoppers followed suit. But how did it all start?
In the damp corners of your kitchen or bathroom, you may have noticed small insects - they are called scales (right). There is a variety of silverfish, from the bodies of which a pair of tiny plates protrude, resembling flaps. Perhaps some similar insect became the ancestor of all flying insects. Maybe it spread these records in the sun to quickly warm up in the early morning.

Carboniferous or Carboniferous period. It is the fifth period of an era. It lasted from 358 million years ago to 298 million years ago, that is, for 60 million years. In order not to get confused in eons, eras and periods, use the geochronological scale, which is located as a visual clue.

The name "Carboniferous" carbon was due to the fact that in the geological layers given period find strong carbonation. However, this period is characterized not only by increased coal formation. Carbon is also known for the formation of the supercontinent Pangea and the active development of life.

It was in the Carboniferous that the supercontinent Pangea appeared, which is considered the largest in size that has ever existed on Earth. Pangea was formed as a result of the union of the Laurasia supercontinent (North America and Eurasia) and the Gondwana supercontinent (South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, Arabia, Madagascar and India). As a result of the connection, the old ocean, Rhea, ceased to exist, and a new ocean, Tethys, arose.

Flora and fauna underwent significant changes in the Carboniferous. The first coniferous trees, as well as cycads and cordaites. In the animal world, there was a rapid flowering and species diversity. This period can also be attributed to the flowering of land animals. The first dinosaurs appeared: primitive reptiles cotylosaurs, animal-like (synapsids or theromorphs, considered the ancestors of mammals), herbivorous edaphosaurs with a large crest on their backs. Many types of vertebrates appeared. In addition, insects flourished on land. Dragonflies, mayflies, flying cockroaches and other insects lived in the Carboniferous period. In the Carboniferous, several types of sharks are found at once, some of which reached 13 meters in length.

Animals of the Carboniferous

Arthropleura

Tuditanus punctulatus

Baphotides

Westlothiana

Cotylosaurus

Meganeura

Real size model of Meganeura

Nautiloids

Proterogyrinus

Edaphosaurus

Edaphosaurus

Eogyrinus

Car service "Your muffler" in SZAO - services from professionals in their field. Contact us if you need to knock out the catalyst and replace it with a flame arrester. High-quality repair of exhaust systems.

Huge deposits of coal are found in the deposits of this period. Hence the name of the period. There is another name for it - carbon.

The Carboniferous period is divided into three sections: lower, middle and upper. During this period, the physical and geographical conditions of the Earth underwent significant changes. The outlines of the continents and seas repeatedly changed, new mountain ranges, seas, and islands arose. At the beginning of the Carboniferous, a significant subsidence of the land takes place. The vast areas of Atlantia, Asia, and Rondwana were flooded by the sea. The area of ​​large islands has decreased. Disappeared under water deserts of the northern continent. The climate has become very warm and humid, Photo

In the Lower Carboniferous, an intensive mountain-building process begins: the Ardepny, Gary, the Ore Mountains, the Sudetes, the Atlasspe Mountains, the Australian Cordillera, and the West Siberian Mountains are formed. The sea is receding.

In the middle Carboniferous, the land descends again, but much less than in the lower one. Thick strata of continental deposits accumulate in intermountain basins. Formed Eastern Ural, Penninskis mountains.

In the Upper Carboniferous, the sea recedes again. Inland seas are significantly reduced. On the territory of Gondwana, large glaciers appear, in Africa and Australia, somewhat smaller ones.

At the end of the Carboniferous in Europe and North America, the climate undergoes changes, becoming partly temperate, and partly hot and dry. At this time, the formation of the Central Urals takes place.

Marine sedimentary deposits of the Carboniferous period are mainly represented by clays, sandstones, limestones, shales and volcanogenic rocks. Continental - mainly coal, clays, sands and other rocks.

Intensified volcanic activity in the Carboniferous led to the saturation of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. Volcanic ash, which is a wonderful fertilizer, made fertile carboxylic soils.

A warm and humid climate prevailed on the continents for a long time. All this created extremely favorable conditions for the development of terrestrial flora, including higher plants of the Carboniferous period - bushes, trees and herbaceous plants, whose life was closely connected with water. They grew chiefly among vast swamps and lakes, near brackish lagoons, on the shores of the seas, on damp muddy soil. In terms of their way of life, they resembled modern mangroves that grow on the low-lying shores of tropical seas, in the mouths big rivers, in swampy lagoons, rising above the water on high stilted roots.

Significant development in the Carboniferous period was received by lycopods, arthropods and ferns, which gave a large number of tree-like forms.

Tree-like lycopods reached 2 m in diameter and 40 m in height. They didn't have annual rings yet. An empty trunk with a powerful branched crown was securely held in loose soil by a large rhizome, branching into four main branches. These branches, in turn, were dichotomously divided into root processes. Their leaves, up to a meter in length, adorned the ends of the branches with thick plump-shaped bunches. At the ends of the leaves there were buds in which spores developed. Trunks of lycopods were covered with scarred scales. Leaves were attached to them. During this period, giant club-shaped lepidodendrons with rhombic scars on the trunks and sigillaria with hexagonal scars were common. In contrast to most club-like sigillaria, there was an almost unbranched trunk on which sporangia grew. Among the lycopods there were also herbaceous plants, which completely died out in the Permian period.

Articular plants are divided into two groups: cuneiform and calamites. Cuneiformes were aquatic plants. They had a long, jointed, slightly ribbed stem, to the nodes of which leaves were attached in rings. Reniform formations contained spores. Cuneiformes kept on the water with the help of long branched stems, similar to the modern water ranunculus. Cuneiformes appeared in the middle Devonian and died out in the Permian period.

Calamites were tree-like plants up to 30 m tall. They formed swamp forests. Some types of calamites penetrated far to the mainland. Their ancient forms had dichotomous leaves. Subsequently, forms with simple leaves and annual rings prevailed. These plants had a highly branched rhizome. Often, additional roots and branches covered with leaves grew from the trunk.

At the end of the Carboniferous, the first representatives of horsetails appear - small herbaceous plants. Among the carboxylic flora, ferns played a prominent role, in particular herbaceous ones, but their structure resembled psilophytes, and real ferns, large tree-like plants, fixed by rhizomes in soft soil. They had a rough trunk with numerous branches on which grew broad fern-like leaves.

Gymnosperms of carbon forests belong to the subclasses of seed ferns and stachyospermids. Their fruits developed on leaves, which is a sign of primitive organization. At the same time, linear or lanceolate leaves of gymnosperms had a rather complex vein formation. The most perfect plants of the Carboniferous are cordaites. Their cylindrical leafless trunks up to 40 m branched in height. The branches had wide, linear or lanceolate leaves with reticulate venation at the ends. Male sporangia (microsporangia) looked like kidneys. From female sporangia developed nut-like:. fruit. The results of microscopic examination of the fruits show that these plants, similar to cycads, were transitional forms to coniferous plants.

The first mushrooms, moss-like plants (terrestrial and freshwater), sometimes forming colonies, and lichens appear in the coal forests.

In marine and freshwater basins, algae continue to exist: green, red and char ...

When considering the Carboniferous flora as a whole, the variety of forms of leaves of tree-like plants is striking. Scars on the trunks of plants throughout life kept long, lanceolate leaves. The ends of the branches were decorated with huge leafy crowns. Sometimes leaves grew along the entire length of the branches.

PhotoOther feature carboniferous flora - the development of an underground root system. Strongly branched roots grew in the silty soil and new shoots grew from them. At times, significant areas were cut by underground roots. In places of rapid accumulation of silty sediments, the roots held the trunks with numerous shoots. The most important feature of the Carboniferous flora is that the plants did not differ in rhythmic growth in thickness.

The distribution of the same carboniferous plants from North America to Svalbard indicates that a relatively uniform distribution dominated from the tropics to the poles. warm climate, which was replaced by a rather cool one in the Upper Carboniferous. Gymnosperms and cordaites grew in a cool climate. The growth of carboniferous plants almost did not depend on the seasons. It resembled the growth of freshwater algae. The seasons probably did not differ much from each other.

When studying the "Carboniferous flora, one can trace the evolution of plants. Schematically, it looks like this: brown algae-ferns-psilophants-pteridospermids (seed ferns) conifers.

When dying, the plants of the Carboniferous period fell into the water, they were covered with silt, and after lying for millions of years, they gradually turned into coal. Coal formed from all parts of the plant: wood, bark, branches, leaves, fruits. The remains of animals were also turned into coal. This is evidenced by the fact that the remains of freshwater and terrestrial animals in carbon deposits are relatively rare.

The marine fauna of the Carboniferous was characterized by a variety of species. Foraminifera were extremely common, in particular fusulinids with fusiform shells the size of a grain.

Schwagerins appear in the Middle Carboniferous. Their spherical shell was the size of a small pea. From the shells of foraminifers of the Late Carboniferous, limestone deposits were formed in some places.

Among the corals, there were still a few genera of tabulates, but the hatetids began to predominate. Solitary corals often had thick calcareous walls, Colonial corals formed reefs.

At this time, echinoderms, in particular sea lilies and sea ​​urchins. Numerous colonies of bryozoans sometimes formed thick limestone deposits.

The brachiopod mollusks, in particular the produktuses, have developed extremely well, far surpassing all the brachiopods found on Earth in adaptability and geographical distribution. The size of their shells reached 30 cm in diameter. One shell flap was convex, and the other was in the form of a flat lid. The straight elongated hinge edge often had hollow spines. In some forms of productus, the spines were four times the diameter of the shell. With the help of spines, the produktus held on to the leaves of aquatic plants, which carried them downstream. Sometimes with their spikes they were attached to sea ​​lilies or algae and lived near them in a hanging position. In richtofenia, one shell valve was transformed into a horn up to 8 cm long.

In the Carboniferous period, nautiloids almost completely die out, with the exception of nautiluses. This genus, divided into 5 groups (which were represented by 84 species), has survived to our time. Orthoceras continue to exist, the shells of which had a pronounced external structure. The horn-shaped shells of Cyrtoceras almost did not differ from the shells of their Devonian ancestors. Ammonites were represented by two orders - goniatites and agoniatites, as in the Devonian period, bivalve mollusks - single-muscular forms. Among them are many freshwater forms that inhabited carbon lakes and marshes.

The first terrestrial gastropods appear - animals that breathed with lungs.

Trilobites reached a significant peak during the Ordovician and Silurian periods. In the Carboniferous period, only a few of their genera and species survived.

By the end of the Carboniferous period, trilobites had almost completely died out. This was facilitated by the fact that cephalopods and fish fed on trilobites and consumed the same food as trilobites. The body structure of trilobites was imperfect: the shell did not protect the belly, the limbs were small and weak. Trilobites did not have attack organs. For some time, they could protect themselves from predators by curling up like modern hedgehogs. But at the end of the Carboniferous, fish appeared with powerful jaws that gnawed their shell. Therefore, from the numerous type of inermi, only one genus has been preserved.

Crustaceans, scorpions, and insects appeared in the lakes of the Carboniferous period. Carboniferous insects had features of many genera of modern insects, so it is impossible to attribute them to any one genus now known to us. Undoubtedly, the Ordovician trilobites were the ancestors of the insects of the Carboniferous period. The Devonian and Silurian insects had much in common with some of their ancestors. They already played a significant role in the animal world.

However, insects reached their true flourishing in the Carboniferous period. Representatives of the smallest known species of insects were 3 cm long; the wingspan of the largest (for example, stenodictia) reached 70 cm, the ancient dragonfly meganeura had one meter. The body of the meganeura had 21 segments. Of these, 6 made up the head, 3-thorax with four wings, 11-abdomen, the final segment looked like an awl-shaped continuation of the tail shield of trilobites. Numerous pairs of limbs were dismembered. With their help, the animal both walked and swam. Juvenile meganeurs lived in the water, turning into adult insects as a result of molting. Meganeura had strong jaws and compound eyes.

In the Upper Carboniferous period, ancient insects died out, their descendants were more adapted to the new living conditions. Orthoptera in the course of evolution gave termites and dragonflies, eurypterus ants. Most of the ancient forms of insects passed to a terrestrial way of life only in adulthood. They reproduced exclusively in water. Thus, the change from a humid climate to a drier one was a disaster for many ancient insects.

In the Carboniferous, many sharks appear. These were not yet real sharks inhabiting modern oceans, however, compared with other groups of fish, they were the most advanced predators. IN individual cases their teeth and fin types overflow the Carboniferous deposits. This indicates that coal sharks lived in any water. The teeth are serrated, wide, cutting, bumpy, as sharks fed on a variety of animals. Gradually they exterminated the primitive Devonian fishes. The knife-like teeth of the sharks easily gnawed through the shells of trilobites, and the wide, bumpy dental plates crushed the thick shells of mollusks well. Saw-toothed, pointed rows of teeth allowed sharks to feed on colonial animals. The shapes and sizes of sharks were as varied as the way they fed. Some of them surrounded Coral reefs and pursued their prey with lightning speed, while others leisurely hunted mollusks, trilobites, or buried themselves in silt and lay in wait for prey. Sharks with a sawtooth outgrowth on their heads searched for victims in thickets of seaweed. Large sharks often attacked smaller ones, so some of the latter evolved fin spines and skin teeth to protect themselves.

Sharks bred intensively. This eventually led to the overpopulation of the sea by these animals. Many forms of ammopits were exterminated, solitary corals, which were easily accessible nutritious food for sharks, disappeared, the number of trilobites was significantly reduced, and all mollusks that had a thin shell died. Only.the.thick.shells of spirifers resisted predators.

The products have also survived. They defended themselves from predators with long spikes.

In the freshwater basins of the Carboniferous, many enamel-scaled fish lived. Some of them jumped along the muddy shore, like modern jumping fish. Fleeing from enemies, insects left aquatic environment and settled the land first near the swamps and lakes, and then the mountains, valleys and deserts of the carboniferous continents.

Among the insects of the Carboniferous period, there are no bees and butterflies. This is understandable, since at that time there were no flowering plants, whose pollen and nectar these insects feed on.

Lung-breathing animals first appear on the continents of the Devonian period. They were amphibians.

The life of amphibians is closely connected with water, since they breed only in water. The warm, humid climate of the Carboniferous was extremely conducive to the flourishing of amphibians. Their skeletons were not yet fully ossified, and their jaws had delicate teeth. The skin was covered in scales. For a low roof-shaped skull, the entire group of amphibians received the name stegocephals (shell-headed). The body dimensions of amphibians ranged from 10 cm to 5 m. Most of them had four legs with short toes. Some had claws that allowed them to climb trees. Legless forms also appear. Depending on the way of life, amphibians acquired triton-like, serpentine, salamander-like forms. There were five holes in the skull of amphibians: two nasal, two ophthalmic and parietal eyes. Subsequently, this parietal eye was transformed into the pineal gland of the mammalian brain. The back of the stegocephalians was bare, and the belly was covered with delicate scales. They inhabited shallow lakes and swampy places near the coast.

The most characteristic representative of the first reptiles is edaphosaurus. He looked like a huge lizard. On his back he had a high crest of long bone spikes, interconnected by a leathery membrane. Edaphosaurus was a herbivorous pangolin and lived near coal marshes.

A large number of coal basins, deposits of oil, iron, manganese, copper, and limestones are associated with coal deposits.

This period lasted 65 million years.