There are no fossil bearing rock of Carboniferous age preserved in New Jersey
North American Paleontology:The word “Carboniferous” comes from
the Latin, meaning “coal-bearing.” In the United States, the
Carboniferous Period is commonly divided into the Mississippian (Early
Carboniferous), 360 to 325 million years ago (mya), and the
Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous), 325 to 286 mya. During the Early
Carboniferous (Mississippian), limestone's, shale's, sandstones, and evaporites
were deposited in the shallow sea that covered most of North America.
The highlands along our modern East Coast were being eroded until the
Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), when North America started to
collide with Gondwana. The collision uplifted
the ancestral Rocky Mountains, the Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma, the
Appalachians, and much of present-day eastern Canada and the East Coast
from Maine to Alabama. |
