The World's Largest Fossil Wilderness (Coal mine)

Smithsonian ^ | July 2009 | Guy Gugliotta

[decimon]

Finding a fossil in a coal mine is no big deal. Coal deposits, after all, are petrified peat swamps, and peat is made from decaying plants, which leave their imprints in mud and clay as it hardens into shale stone.

But it was a different thing entirely when John Nelson and Scott Elrick, geologists with the Illinois State Geological Survey, examined the Riola and Vermilion Grove coal mines in eastern Illinois. Etched into ceilings of the mine shafts is the largest intact fossil forest ever seen—at least four square miles of tropical wilderness preserved 307 million years ago. That's when an earthquake suddenly lowered the swamp 15 to 30 feet and mud and sand rushed in, covering everything with sediment and killing trees and other plants. "It must have happened in a matter of weeks," says Elrick. "What we see here is the death of a peat swamp, a moment in geologic time frozen by an accident of nature."

[stockpirate]

PING

[cripplecreek]

The sandstone quarry near me sells fossil filled slabs of stone as decorative paving stone.

[decimon]

The sandstone quarry near me sells fossil filled slabs of stone as decorative paving stone.

Fossil killers!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Is this close to the New Harmony Fault ?

[cripplecreek]

South central Michiganistan.

[JeanLM]

So now where did all that carbon buried for 300+ million years come from? It came from the CO2 that the forest inhaled and then converted into the stuff of life and now energy.

CO2 is the source of life and energy, not a poison.

[aruanan]

So now where did all that carbon buried for 300+ million years come from? It came from the CO2 that the forest inhaled and then converted into the stuff of life and now energy.

There are relatively few fossils in coal. It is mostly carbon. The isotope ratios of various elements do not support the idea of coal as having originated from buried, compressed plant material.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

There’s no question that coal is the result of compressed plant material. I was active in the Illinois Basin and the evidence of leaves was obvious.

[frithguild]

It is clear that all coal depsits are of great scientific and archeological significance. They must be preserved for future generations.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

It’s too late. I already drilled and blasted.

[decimon]

It is clear that all coal depsits are of great scientific and archeological significance. They must be preserved for future generations.

Sarcasm noted.

The funny thing is, they have to extract the coal to uncover the fossils.

[frithguild]

It’s too late. I already drilled and blasted.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Looks like nitro headache # 5.

[aruanan]

There’s no question that coal is the result of compressed plant material. I was active in the Illinois Basin and the evidence of leaves was obvious.

I didn't say there were no fossils, just that there are too few and the isotope ratios are wrong.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The stuff is something like 260 million years old so we'll have to await a higher authority to say for sure.
We operated a hydrocyclone wash plant to lower the sulfur and ash in the raw coal. The "coarse reject" material was very neat stuff, full of pyrites, partings and something we referred to as 'cannel coal,' which was dull colored and brittle. It was heavier than the regular coal, which made it sink in the cyclone bath. At one of our pits where the coal was about 90 feet deep, there was a rider seam, high in the hill, well above the shale, laying in the clay layer. Part of this had burned at some point, probably ignited at its crop edge by a prairie fire.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks stockpirate!

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[SunkenCiv]

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[redhead]

"The sandstone quarry near me sells fossil filled slabs of stone as decorative paving stone."

My oldest son used to work in a flagstone quarry in Arizona, and he brought me a nice slab with the fossilized tracks of a large tortoise on it. My treasure!

[bert]

If you look at coal, the plants are there in your hands, right before you eyes. To state otherwise is preposterous balderdash.