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Isn't coal from before dead biomass could be decomposed?
by CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
Isn't coal from before dead biomass could be decomposed?
- collaborative 5y agoYes
- FooHentai 5y agoWhile there's a hypothesis that lack of lignin-eating bacteria/fungi spurred greater coal formation at one time in earth's history, there's not much evidence supporting it. Rather, general conditions during the paleozoic/mesazoic periods (shifting waters, tectonic movement) likely lent themselves to accelerated coal formation as plant matter was disturbed, submerged, and interred in greater amounts than occurs today.
- FooHentai 5y agoNo. There are two prevailing theories of how coal is formed - Drift or In-Situ but in both, coal is plant matter decayed (via bacteria, fungi etc) into peat. The peat then undergoes the transition to various coal forms (Lignite, Bituminous, Anthracite) due to pressure as it sits underground. It's a very slow process, but ongoing.
- 8bitsrule 5y agoOnce I visited a lignite coal mine in western NoDak. The owner was fond of showing a collection of semi-fossilized root balls and tree-parts that were dug out along with the coal. Dates to 55-65Mya. It was being strip-mined, and it was close to the surface too. "Western North Dakota contains an estimated 351 billion tons of lignite, the single largest deposit of lignite known in the world... enough to last for over 800 years..." - https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/Mineral/nd_coalnew.asp https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/Mineral/nd_coalnew.asp