Image: Artist's rendering of prehistoric swamp forest landscape.
Image: Artist rendering of Carboniferous forests.
Mount Rundle, Banff
Botanist studying Carboniferous ferns.
Reef tip shark
Calamites fossil
Horsetail fossil
Crinoid fossil
Cockroach
Close view of a Pacific lamprey
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Carboniferous Swamp
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. The name "Carboniferous" refers to this coal.
Artwork by Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images

Carboniferous Period

See photos and illustrations of the Carboniferous period from National Geographic.

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