a. [f. L. carbōn-em coal, CARBON + -fer bearing + -OUS. Cf. mod.F. carbonifère.]
1. Producing coal. Applied in Geol. to the extensive and thick series of palæozoic strata, with which seams of coal are associated, the Carboniferous System or Formation, lying next above the Devonian or Old Red Sandstone, and including the Coal Measures, Millstone Grit, and Mountain or Carboniferous Limestone; also to the rocks, fossils, etc., of this formation, and to the age of geological time, the Carboniferous Age, Era, or Period, during which these strata were deposited, and the luxuriant vegetation existed that formed the coal-beds.
1799. Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 290. By carboniferous soils, I mean the various sorts of earth or stone among or under which coal is usually found.
1803. Playfair, Illustr. Hutton. The., 152. The facts which Mr. Kirwan produces in treating of what he calls carboniferous soils.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol. (1875), II. III. xlv. 529. The Scar Limestone, a member of the carboniferous series.
1842. H. Miller, O. R. Sandst., x. (ed. 2), 224. During the vastly-extended term of the carboniferous period. Ibid. (1857), First Impr., i. 14. Deep in the carboniferous ocean.
1851. Richardson, Geol., i. 6. Lead is chiefly confined to the carboniferous limestone.
1881. A. Ramsay, in Nature, 419. The Apalachian chain is chiefly of post-Carboniferous date.
2. jocularly. Coal-bearing, carrying coals.
1865. Daily Tel., 20 July, 3/1. There was a set-to between some of the speakers and the coalporters…. Another [speaker] believed that the expulsion of the carboniferous brawlers in the body of the court would be attended with an equally pacific result.
