Mississippian Synonyms

This older classification, which has little support except that which is traditional, is still adhered to by many geologists; hut the fact seems to be that the system is set off from the Pennsylvanian (Upper Carboniferous) more sharply than the Cambrian is from the Ordoviciao, the Silurian from the Devonian, or the Devonian from the Mississippian.

Superficially, each is a simple rolling plateau, much broken by erosion (though considerable undissected areas drained by underground channels remain), especially in the east, and dotted with hills; some of these are residual outliers of the eroded Mississippian limestones to the west, and others are the summits of an archaean topography above which sedimentary formations that now constitute the valley-floor about them were deposited and then eroded.

When deposition was renewed in the interior of the continent, the formations laid down were largely non-marine, and, over great areas, they rest upon the Mississippian unconformably.

Pennsylvanian SystemThe Pennsylvanian or Upper Carboniferous system overlics the Mississippian unconformably over a large part of the United States.

United States, in Missouri, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and elsewhere, there is an unconformable junction between the Lower and Upper Carboniferous, representing an interval of time during which the lower member was strongly eroded; it has even been proposed to regard the Mississippian (Lower Carboniferous) as a distinct geological period, mainly on account of this break in the succession.