Talk:Mississippian (geology)

message: Blanked aparently pointless content on talk page, added reference to main article  Astaroth5 23:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism reverted

message: We need a redir to Mississippian culture. I'll make one. -- Rob C (Alarob) 19:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since there's a Mississippian (disambiguation) page, I just pointed to that. | Pat 15:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect 

message: The Early Carboniferous or Mississippian sub-period lasted for about 40 million years.  During that time animal life, both vertebrate and invertebrate, consolidated its position on land the way plant life did during the Devonian.  Euramerica and western Gondwana drifted northwards and moved closer together.  This movement caused a lot of mountain building - the Varisca-Hercynian Orogeny - in Europe.
The American geologist Alexander Winchell formally proposed the name Mississippian in 1869 for the Lower Carboniferous strata (mostly limestones from limy mud laid down in a shallow sea) that are extensively exposed along the Upper Mississippi River drainage region.  In 1891 H. S. Williams divided the "Carboniferous or Pennine" System into Pennsylvanian and Mississippian.  In 1911 Ulrich divided the Mississippian into Waverleyan and Tennesseean systems.
The term Mississippian is used by American geologists and paleontologist but did not catch on in Europe or elsewhere, where Carboniferous was retained.  The Mississippian and the "Lower Carboniferous" are not actually equivalent.  Nevertheless some recent fiddling with boundaries has allowed the two to be matched and the Mississippian became a formal international term for the Early (Lower) Carboniferous, encompassing the Tournaisian, Viséan, and Serpukhovian Ages. 
Geography of the Mississippian
ATW041223.  Map public domain.  No rights reserved.  An enormous, 2400 x 1200 pixel, unlabelled version of this map is available (free) in all the usual formats, including a Photoshop® .psd file with each topographical type on a different layer.  That one is 9 MB.  Email augwhite@sbcglobal.net. 
The Mississippian saw mountain building in what is now western North America.  A glaciated Gondwana nears southern Euramerica and continues to collide with ancestral Europe, resulting in the Hercynian Orogeny and great mountains in southern Europe.
 
Mississippian Stratigraphy
Period/Epoch Age Faunal Stages When began Duration 
Pennsylvanian 
(late Carboniferous) Bashkirian Kinderscoutian 322.8  
 Mississippian 
(early Carboniferous) 
you are here! Serpukhovian Alportian 
Chokierian 
Arnsbergian 
Pendleian 325.6 
328.3
332.9
 2.8 
2.7
4.5
 
Viséan Brigantian 
Asbian 
Holkerian 
Arundian 
Chadian 336 
339.4 
342.8 
345 
349.5 17 
Tournaisian Ivorian 
Hastarian 353.8 
362.5 13 
Devonian D3 Famennian     
 
Mississippian Life
Marine Biota
Arthropods, corals, bryozoa, crinoids, and mollusks flourished in warm shallow seas.  Echinoderms - especially Crinoids were extremely numerous.  Trilobites were much reduced in numbers, and confined to a single superfamily, the Proetoidea (also spelled Proeteacea).  The last of the dendrite graptiloids died out.  The first of the giant fusulinid foramnifers (marine amoebas) appear, but these are still tiny and insignificant
Cephalopoda 
Of the nautiloid (palcephalopoda) cephalopods only the nautilida flourished.  The giant straight-shelled Rayonnoceras, up to perhaps 6 meters in length, was the last of the Actinocerida.  The bulbous-shelled Oncocerida also died out at this time.  Many types of Ammonoid cephalopods evolved, mostly of the simple goniatiatic suture pattern.  Especially in northwest Europe, their fossils are of great stratigraphic importance.  The first ceratic ammonoids appear, with a more complex suture pattern.
Vertebrates 
Sharks, actinopterygian, and sarcopterygian fish were all numerous and diverse.  The Actinopterygii were mostly of the "paleonisciforms."
Freshwater and Terrestrial Biota
There are major differences between Late Devonian and early Mississippian vegetation.  Areas that were previously forest were now dominated by shrubby r-selected plants, mostly pteridosperms less than 2 meters in height.  In other words weeds.  Only later did lycopsid and calamite trees reappear, paving the way for the giant forests of the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) period.
The climate, originally hot and dry, became cooler and wet later in the Mississippian period.  Plants became important ground cover in this lush new environment, producing shelter for invertebrates which in turn provided food for early tetrapods.
Terrestrial invertebrates are poorly known, but it is likely that they consisted of mites, scorpions and other arachnids, millipedes, arthropleurids, collembolans (springtails), and an increasing diversity of litter-reducing insects (e.g. blattoids).  Some Eurypterids of this time may have been partially terrestrial.
This was the period of greatest tetrapod evolutionary radiation.  The early generations of aquatic Ichhyostegids were replaced by various parallel lineages of labyrinthodont and Lepospondyl amphibians.  All the major ancient tetrapod groups  seem to have appeared at this time.  the majority were probably semi-aquatic, but early terrestrial forms and proto-reptiles appeared as well.  The fresh-water Rhizodontiform fish - tetrapod "uncles" that like lungfish were capable of breathing air on occasion - were the super predators of the swamps, streams and lakes, with Rhizodus attaining 5 to 6 meters in length.
The Mississippian terrestrial food chain seems to have been much more primitive and less efficient then that of today. The major link between plant productivity and animal consumers seems to have been, as in the Devonian, through detritivorous arthropods.  Insect herbivory was only just beginning at the end of the Mississippian sub-period, and tetrapod herbivory unknown.  Most insects and arachnids scrounged for food in leaf litter, and served as the primary food source for the early terrestrial tetrapods.
ref: Anna K. Behrensmeyer, John D. Damuth, William A. Dimichele, and Hans-Dieter Sues, Terrestrial Ecosystems Through Time : Evolutionary Paleoecology of Terrestrial Plants and Animals 
  habitat river, pond and swamp 
(semi or fully aquatic) water margins 
(mixed terrestrial & amphibious) lowlands and flood plain 
(fully terrestrial) 
type of creature  
   
Tetrapod Bioprovinces
During this period there seems to have been only a single tetrapod province, although that may be because all known tetrapod fossils of this age are from tropical Euramerica; there are none known further than 5 degrees north or 20 degrees south of Viséan paleoequator.  It is not known whether this is because the rest of the world was uninhabitable to animal life at the time (due to the increasing polar ice age conditions) or simply because no other localities have yet been discovered.
 
Crassigyrinus 
a very primitive eel-like aquatic ?tetrapod 
Viséan to Serpukhovian of Europe 
length 2 metres  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.157.69.68 (talk) 17:21, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  copy and paste on page were needed didn't want to mess up page 

message: I don't believe that the Mississippian is officially considered a Series or Epoch by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. I think it is usually termed a Subsystem (Sub-Period) of the Carboniferous. The series or epochs of the Carboniferous are the Early (Lower), Middle, and Late (Upper) Mississippian, and the Early (Lower), Middle, and Late (Upper) Pennsylvanian. In other words there are six epochs of the Carboniferous.  ICS Paleozoic strata list - Parsa (talk) 16:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epoch ? 

message: The template and text do not correspond with the 2004 and more recent decisions of the ICS. The Mississippian and Pennsylvanian are subsystems of the Carboniferous. The epochs are: Lower Mississippian, Middle Mississippian, Upper Mississippian, Lower Pennsylvanian, Middle Pennsylvanian, and Upper Pennsylvanian. The Upper Pennsylvanian is comprised of the Kasimovian and Gzhelian Stages.
Sources:
*The 2008 version of the International Stratigraphic Chart - 24 Feb 2009,
*GSSP Table - Paleozoic Era
- Parsa (talk) 21:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template and text 

message: This strata is getting major attention in KS/OK for oil exploration... any point in mentioning that? (See: http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/Mississippian-Oil-Play-Gaining-Traction-PQ-RRC-SD-CHK-DVN0815.aspx?printable=1). Also, there's a ton of good information on this discussion page about flora and fauna during the Missippian period, is that appropriate to be worked into the article? No one ever commented yay/nay. Alphachimera (talk) 22:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updates 

message: I'd take issue with this statement: In Europe, the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian are one more-or-less continuous sequence of lowland continental deposits and are grouped together as the Carboniferous system, and sometimes called the Upper Carboniferous and Lower Carboniferous instead. I don't know the detail across continental Europe but in Britain and Ireland (which constitute a part of Europe), the lower Carboniferous='Mississippian' is generally represented by marine limestones, unconformably overlain by deltaic deposits. Some tweaking required I think. cheers Geopersona (talk) 09:08, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what you mean.  But the whole article is brief and lacking in any real detail.  And the 'more-or-less' seems at least to acknowledge this.  It's interesting that the entire (short) article about this huge worldwide geological period is so brief, whereas localised articles, such as, for example, Geology of Alderley Edge, can be so full. What might be done?  One could imagine an article "Carboniferous in Europe", and related articles... Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It would benefit from input from an editor or series of editors with some degree of global perspective whereas most contributors have more of a local or regional knowledge. Geopersona (talk) 18:33, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It would need an expert on both British and Continental European geology to judge whether separate articles are needed on each area or just one on Carboniferous in Europe. The terms Upper Carboniferous and Lower Carboniferous are almost always used in British sources and it would be interesting to know what the subperiods are generally called on the Continent. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:12, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  European character?