An approximate timescale of key Carboniferous events.
Axis scale: millions of years ago.
The Mississippian is an epoch in the geologic timescale or a series of the geologic record. It is the earliest/lowermost of two divisions of the Carboniferousperiod lasting from roughly 359 to 318 Ma (million years ago). As with most other geochronologic units, the rock beds that define the period are well identified, but the exact start and end dates are uncertain by a few million years. The Mississippian is so named because rocks from this age are exposed in the Mississippi River valley.
In North America, where the interval consists primarily of marine limestones, it was in the past treated as a full-fledged geologic period between the Devonian and the Pennsylvanian. In Europe, the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian are one more-or-less continuous sequence of lowland continental deposits and are grouped together as the Carboniferoussystem. During the Mississippian Epoch an important phase of orogeny occurred in the Appalachian Mountains.
