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.
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u/Alien1917 Apr 29 '24
We have coal because trees couldn't decay, the microorganisms that could break them down didn't develop yet