Carboniferous PeriodCarboniferous Period in Australia The first reptiles evolved during this period. The period was named because of the formation of the carbon-bearing coal deposits in the Northern Hemisphere. There, the climate was warm. In Australia, (still a part of Gondwana continent), the climate was very cold during this time. It was covered in ice and it was actively volcanic - very different from the warm and geologically stable continent it is today. The glacial indicators, such as striated pavements, scratches and grooves in bedrock, tills, erratics and dropstones have been recorded in Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. Plant and animal fossils from this period are different from those from Cambrian and Devonian times - coral reefs are absent and marine fossils represent a cold-water fauna. Plant fossils are distinctive too, representing the first cold-climate vegetation that evolved on the Earth, known as "the Gondwana flora".
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