If we can dig and mine up coal, does that mean that it was once a tree that burned down?
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In a way coal is very similar to charcoal. Charcoal is made by heating wood in an extremely low oxygen environment. The lack of oxygen means the carbon isn’t consumed in flames. Rather the volatile compounds and water is driven off leaving mostly carbon behind for us to burn later in normal air.
Coal is made deep in the earth. Where intense heat and pressure do much the same thing. The all that pressure and heat causes everything but the carbon compounds to leave the area and compresses them into a dense chunk of carbon.
So the prehistoric tree didn’t burn down. Rather it and many many many others fell over and got buried over millions of years. As it got deeper and deeper into the earth it went through the process I described above.
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