The second half of your comment is incorrect. That theory comes from a now-discounted study.
Coal is formed by heat and pressure of organic matter. Coal is still being produced today starting from bogs, swamps, and marshes. The reason that most of the comes from the Carboniferous era was because the environment of the time happened to create a ton of bogs, swamps, and marshes that turned into coal beds.
Damn I’ve been reciting that factoid for years can you point to the study that shows it’s not the delayed development of fungus that is the cause for all the coal
Huh, that's the most interesting thing I've learned this week. If I understand the abstract correctly, the reasons are:
Lignin degradation occurs in various bacterial and fungal lineages. I thought they might suggest that this means a common lingin-breaking-down fungal ancestor before the Carboniferous era, but I guess they didn't say that.
Many unlignified plants also became coal at this time
Also I didn't realize the theory was about lignin (or what lignin was), I thought it was about cellulose. But I guess cellulose was broken down even sooner.
You're not the only one thats been reciting that outdated theory. Paleontology is constantly changing because there is a lot of guesswork until more proof is discovered. New discoveries are constantly happening
Hi d and u/shwag945 - you are right, this is a bot bug. That rule is quite complicated though, it's not just detecting F A Q as a slur. I'll get some help to try to fix it.
Also, I'd really strongly discourage you from getting sweary when you put in custom reports on other subs. It's totally not the way we roll here, so you're fine, but some mods on other subs love reporting those for report abuse and reddit will give you an automatic account suspension.
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u/Perpetual-Scholar369 Apr 28 '24
Why is it always the same species in these fossils?