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Home » Articles » Geology - the Devonian PeriodGeology - the Devonian Period
Rocks and fossils dating from the Devonian Period.
Rocks and fossils dating from the Devonian Period.
In the Devonian Period, Wales lay along the edge of a large continent which had formed with the closure of an earlier ocean (the Iapetus) and continental collision. This collision formed a huge mountain chain which stretched from Scandinavia, through Scotland, to the Appalachians of eastern North America. Debris from the erosion of these mountains was carried south by rivers to be deposited as the Old Red Sandstone. In south Wales, the Old Red Sandstone was deposited on a wide coastal plain crossed by rivers flowing south to a sea whose shoreline lay in the area of the modern Bristol Channel. This was a very important period of Earth history as plants and animals were just beginning to colonise the land for the very first time.
