Carboniferous

The Carboniferous period lasted from 363-290 mya. It was the longest period of the Palaeozoic, lasting 73 million years. The Carboniferous period, as its name suggests, was when most of the Earth’s supply of coal was produced. Temperatures were at about the same level as nowadays, and trees were massive. This lead to the highest atmospheric oxygen content the world had ever seen. Over 33 percent of air was oxygen, compared to today’s 21 percent. This caused the growth of many animals, including dragonflies as long as a man’s arm, millipedes over 2 metres in length. And, if you’re scared of spiders, please skip the next sentence. They were as big as a small melon. All this oxygen in the atmosphere made lightning storms incredibly violent. Forest fires were so frequent that the oxygen levels began to drop, by the end of the Carboniferous, most species shrank to the sizes we know today, and the temperature had dropped 10oC since the start of the period. Our double heart evolved in the Carboniferous, this gave our ancestors the ability to run faster and escape predators.

Click here to see our Carboniferous fossils.

←Palaeozoic era

Permian period→

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