Review—Implications—Conclusion
Coal seams 50 feet thick are not uncommon. To allow such a bed of coal to accumulate, Earth’s crust, in order to maintain swampy conditions where the vegetation was growing, would have to subside gradually and continuously, the rate very finely regulated to keep pace with the growth, until a bed of vegetal residue at least 500 feet deep accumulated. A coal seam 266 feet thick, would necessitate gradual subsidence until a bed of vegetation 2,660 feet thick accumulated. According to Moore, the bed for the latter coal seam would have to be 5,320 feet thick. Thereupon, sudden additional subsidence would have to occur to arrest vegetal growth and provide a depth of water sufficient for sedimental rock-making material of the roof over the coal to accumulate. Thereafter, following accumulation of the roof strata, crustal emergence would have to take place to an amount just exactly sufficient to form another shallow swamp, etc., etc., etc. There are many instances where layers of coal between rock strata are almost paper-thin. In such cases subsidence to arrest vegetal growth and permit deposit of sediment upon the meager vegetal remains would have to occur suddenly, almost as soon as the swamp was formed. How can anyone believe that such amazing cycles of perfectly regulated and timed subsidence and emergence of Earth’s crust at an isolated spot on Earth could be repeated as many as 117 times, or 76 times, or even 10 times?
“Partings” in coal seams are common. Often in such cases a seam of coal is split horizontally, divided into two parts, an those astounding ice ages upper and a lower, by an intervening wedge-shaped stratum of rock which increases in thickness from nothing, where it begins in the coal seam, until it separates the seam into two parts with a rock stratum which attains in instances many feet in thickness. Such wedge-shaped rock partings pose a mystifying problem for proponents of the theory that coal is the product of decayed vegetation which accumulated in swamps.
Fossils in Coal
In coal mines fossil impressions of ferns and other delicate plants are frequently found in the coal. Fossils even of large tree trunks are often found, some lying horizontally and many standing vertically in the coal seams and extending upward into and through overlying strata of rock. How could this be if coal was formed from slowly accumulating vegetable residue?
Take a case where a fossil tree trunk punctures a coal seam 5 feet thick, and extends upward another 15 feet into the rock roof over the coal. According to the prevalent theory of coal formation, a bed of vegetal residue at least 50 feet deep would have to accumulate to form the 5-foot coal seam. Obviously, at least many hundreds of years would elapse while a bed of peat 50 feet thick was accumulating. How could a tree continue to grow in a peat bed fifty feet thick, then continue to stand and grow while a massive strata of sand or clay sediment was being deposited around it to bury and crush the vegetation into coal? It would be impossible.
The fact that vegetal fossils, spores, pollen, etc., are found in carbon beds of coal no more proves that the carbon came from vegetation than do vegetal fossils found in clay, lime or sand beds, prove that the clay, lime or sand beds are of vegetable origin. Vegetable fossils in coal are carbon because they were buried in carbon; in limestone they are calcareous because they were buried in calcareous sediment, etc., etc. Human fossils have been found in sedimentary rock; but we do not therefore conclude that the rock is of human origin. Fossils of vegetation are even more common in clay beneath and in the roof above coal than they are in the coal itself. Consistency would require us to conclude that the floor and the roof were also formed from vegetation.
Distribution of Coal
How can the theory that coal is a product of rank vegetation square with the fact that no great deposits of coal are found in tropical regions of Earth? If the theory is correct, why is coal found in the greatest amounts in upper latitudes, even within both polar circles, rather than in tropical latitudes, where dense vegetation necessary to produce it would thrive best?
Carbon Preceded Plants
It is quite incredible that production of the immense quantity of carbon which coal constitutes could be due to the puny agency of plants. Is it not obvious that carbon was present on Earth long before the first plant began to grow? Every ounce of carbon now in the form of coal obviously must have been fused in the laboratory of formative heat long before the first plant appeared. Why imagine that plants produced carbon already on hand? Plants merely appropriate and absorb existing carbon as an ingredient and a prerequisite in their growth. The crust of Earth contains untold millions of tons of carbon in many forms, coal being but one form. Even the air contains much carbon. Furthermore the theory that peat forms coal is quite unbelievable on its face. No place on Earth does peat even faintly resemble coal, either chemically or physically, except that it will burn. Peat, wherever found, is still peat. Nowhere does it closely approach the physical nature of coal. Neither is there any indication whatsoever that coal is being formed today in swampy areas anywhere on Earth. The notion is pure fantasy.
Carbon Fell From the Sky
Arguments to refute the notion that coal is of vegetal origin can be multiplied by the dozen. To the writer’s mind, they all tend to prove beyond doubt that the carbon in coal fell from the primordial atmosphere, either mixed with or separate from water, sometimes falling in bodies of surface water and sometimes falling or washing upon and around growing vegetation, What else could account for the existence of fossils of standing trees in strata of coal and solid rock? The trees obviously were alive, growing on dry land when suddenly buried. The coal could not possibly have been formed from slow accumulation and decay of vegetation growing at that spot at that time. Fossilized trees and whole fern leaves, pollen, etc., found in coal show conclusively that the coal did not come from vegetation growing on the spot. Rather, they prove that the carbon was washed to or fell upon the spot.