If we can dig and mine up coal, does that mean that it was once a tree that burned down?
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Most of the earths coal was formed during a period called Carboniferous. During this time there were trees, plants, insects, fish and animals (a lot of early amphibians – it’s also know as the Age of Amphibians) but microbes that could break down cellulose and lignin in trees hadn’t really evolved yet.
Trees just piled on top of each other, not really decaying like they do now. The climate then was quite warm and wet, there were vast forests that covered much of the land.
Towards the end of the period there was an extinction event due to climate change. The earth cooled, water levels dropped and glaciers started to form. The climate became cool and dry. This caused what is known as the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse – basically large swaths of these forests died.
During this period the continents were also being pushed together to form Pangaea. Mountains were being formed while also pushing down adjacent crust – this formed large basins and valleys. These filled with all that dead plant matter and eventually were compressed/pushed farther under the earths surface. This material was “cooked” by the heat below the earths surface over a long period of time which eventually turned into coal.
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