Producing or containing carbon or coal; specifically, relating to the Carboniferous Period (a geological time 300-360 million years ago when vast coal deposits formed).
From carbon plus -ferous (bearing or producing, from Latin ferre). The Carboniferous Period was named in the 1800s because massive coal deposits formed during it.
The Carboniferous Period had giant insects the size of dogs and trees hundreds of feet tall—when those forests died and compressed for millions of years underground, they became the coal that powered the Industrial Revolution.
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