The weight of the trees was so great that the ones on the bottom got squished and became coal. That’s where coal is from. Bonus fact: the whole time this was happening, sharks were hunting in the oceans. Sharks are older than trees and fungus!

  • mindbleachEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    You want a fun bit of prehistory? There were sixty million years between the emergence of trees and the evolution of anything that could eat wood. Anything. Not one animal, vegetable, or mineral could break down dry cellulose… for an entire geological era. During the carboniferous period, the only forces on this planet that could destroy a tree were darkness, gravity, and fire.

    This is where all the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from. This is where all the oil come from. It’s not dinosaur juice! It’s the crushed remains of wildfires the size of continents. Gigatons of charcoal piled up and sublimated beneath tectonic plates, because there was absolutely fucking nothing to stop them.

    • Captain AggravatedEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Does this mean that the earth no longer makes coal? That since there are now microorganisms that break down cellulose logs don’t just stack up for millions of years?