Coal and the Flood

Thomas, Larry.  Coal Geology.  Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.  2nd edition.  2013.  A textbook on coal geology, the study of how coal forms and how it lies in the rocks, by Larry Thomas.  The second edition was published in 2013.  The article quotes it as a recent textbook's account of how coal formed and how long that took.

1. 1a.

   Page 3, section 2.1:  The passage creationists quote, with the sentence they omit.  “It is a fact, however, that the origin of coal has been studied for over a century and that no one model has been identified that can predict the occurrence, development and type of coal.  A variety of models exist which attempt to identify the environment of deposition, but no single one can adequately give a satisfactory explanation for the cyclic nature of coal sequences, the lateral continuity of coal beds, and the physical and chemical characteristics of coals.  However, the advent of sequence stratigraphy has recognized the pattern of geological events leading to the different phases of deposition and erosion within coal-bearing sequences.”  The preceding paragraph describes coals as.  “the result of the accumulation of vegetable debris in a specialized environment of deposition.”  Oard 2024 cites it as Thomas, Ref. 4, p. 3, and his rendering adds an Oxford comma and is otherwise verbatim.  The running head on this page reads.  “Coal Geology, Second Edition. Larry Thomas.” ↩ ↩

2. 1b.

   Page 13, section 2.2.3:  “Assuming a compaction ratio of 10:1 (Ryer and Langer, 1980) to operate in the transition from peat to bituminous coal, and considering that some of the coal seams are tens of metres thick, optimum peat-forming conditions must therefore require the maintenance of a high groundwater table over very long periods of time, that is 5-10 kyr for every metre of clean bituminous coal.”  Ryer and Langer (1980) never adopt 10:1 in their own text.  Their measured ratio is 11.3:1, and 10:1 appears only as one entry in their Table 1, a compilation of earlier estimates with a median of 7:1. ↩ ↩ ↩

3. 1c.

   Page 110, section 4.2.2:  Thomas is reporting Stach (1982) here.  “Stach (1982) quotes temperatures of the order of 100-150°C sufficient for bituminous coal formation according to geological observations. ... time only has a real effect when the temperature is sufficiently high to allow chemical reaction to occur.  Where very low temperatures occur over a very long period, little coalification takes [place].” ↩

Clarey, Timothy L.  “Floating forest hypothesis fails to explain later and larger coal beds.”  Journal of Creation 31(3):12–14.  2017.  An article by Timothy L. Clarey arguing that the floating forest hypothesis, which places the coal plants on a pre-Flood floating forest biome, cannot explain the later and larger coal beds.  Allochthonous means transported: coal made of plants carried in from somewhere else.  The article uses it for Clarey's statement that transported coal is not the issue being criticized, and that the criticism falls on the floating forest model alone.

1. 2a.

   Page 13:  “In fact, the thickest and most extensive coals in the USA are from Cretaceous and Paleogene rock layers and are almost exclusively composed of conifer-dominant plants, like the metasequoia, and very few if any lycopods.”  “The Carboniferous coal beds in Eastern USA are usually 3.0 m or less in thickness.” ↩

2. 2b.

   Page 13:  “Most Flood geologists are in favour of an allochthonous origin for coal, resulting from transport of vegetation by the high energy of the Flood.  Creation scientists point to the tree mat that formed on Spirit Lake from the eruption of Mt St Helens in 1980 as verification of this process.  Allochthonous coal is not the issue that is being criticized.  The aforementioned papers only question the viability of a pre-Flood floating forest biome ... Unfortunately, this issue is sometimes 'muddied' in creationist literature because the term 'allochthonous coal' is sometimes used interchangeably with the floating forest hypothesis.” ↩ ↩

3. 2c.

   Page 14:  “To make matters worse, the advocates of the floating forest hypothesis have made no attempt to account for the thickest and most extensive coals in the world.  Coals found in Cretaceous and Paleogene rocks globally have been largely ignored.”  Pages 12–14, section conclusion:  “cannot adequately explain even the smallest subset of coal deposits”. ↩ ↩

4. 2d.

   Page 14:  “A few lycopod forests, like the site in Glasgow, Scotland, were merely sheared off, transporting the tree trunks while leaving the rooted stumps in place.  Later, as the Floodwaters increased in height, trees like the metasequoia that grew at higher elevations were torn loose, transported, and deposited as allochthonous coal beds in the later Flood rocks.”  His note 3 grants that the Fossil Grove mudstone is.  “not necessarily a Flood deposit”.  Powder River figures:  “At least six or more coal beds in the PRB exceed 30 m in thickness ... Some of these coal beds can exceed 70 m thick in places, such as the Big George coal layer.  The USGS has estimated that the total in-place coal resources of the PRB are approximately 971 billion tonnes.” ↩ ↩

5. 2e.

   n. 12, on Germany:  “has approximately 65% of its coal reserves in Cenozoic rocks, largely devoid of lycopod trees”. ↩

Ager, Derek V.  The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  1993.  The 1981 second edition, at p. 42, has only the precursor, which reads.  “38 feet high and still standing in its living position”.  “Sedimentation must therefore have been fast enough to bury the tree and solidify before the tree had time to rot.”  A 1993 book arguing that rare events matter a great deal in geological history.  Ager dates his coal-measures calculation to after a 1988 conversation.  The article uses it because creationists quote the first half of that calculation and leave out Ager's conclusion that sedimentation was at times very rapid and at other times had long breaks.

1. 3a.

   Page 49:  The whole passage:  “Broadhurst and Loring (1970 and earlier papers by Fred Broadhurst) recorded standing trees up to 10 m high in the Lancashire coalfield of north-west England.  They showed that rapid sedimentation had alternated with slow, rather like ballroom dancing - 'slow, slow, quick quick, slow'.  Obviously sedimentation had to be very rapid to bury a tree in a standing position before it rotted and fell down. ... If one estimates the total thickness of the British Coal Measures as about 1000 m, laid down in about 10 million years, then, assuming a constant rate of sedimentation, it would have taken 100000 years to bury a tree 10 m high, which is ridiculous.  Alternatively if a 10 m tree were buried in 10 years, that would mean 1000 km in a million years or 10000 km in 10 million years (i.e. the duration of the Coal Measures).  This is equally ridiculous and we cannot escape the conclusion that sedimentation was at times very rapid indeed and that at other times there were long breaks in sedimentation, though it looks both uniform and continuous.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Supardi.  “General geology and peat resources of the Siak Kanan and Bengkalis Island peat deposits, Sumatra, Indonesia.”  Modern and Ancient Coal-Forming Environments, GSA Special Paper 286, 45–61.  Edited by J.C. Cobb and C.B. Cecil.  1993.  A chapter in a volume on modern and ancient coal-forming environments.  Its authors dated peat samples by radiocarbon (carbon-14) and worked out how fast the peat grew, for two areas of Sumatra, Indonesia: the Siak Kanan area and Bengkalis Island.  It found that the lowland peat of Riau Province covers 48,000 km² and that the peat grew fastest when it first formed.  The article uses it to show that tropical peat forms, with measured depths, ages and growth rates, against the claim that peat does not form in the tropics.

1. 4a.

   Page 45, section abstract:  “Peat deposits cover 48,000 km² on the lowlands of Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. ... The peat accumulated in the past 5,000 years after stabilization of sea level following the rapid sea-level rise during glacial retreat.  In the interior area of the peat deposits, the initial peat accumulation rate was rapid (4-5 mm/yr) for approximately 1,000 years;  the rate decreased to less than 2 mm/yr for the past 3,500-4,000 years.” ↩

2. 4b.

   Page 49:  “Eleven peat samples from site C-2 with thick (10 m) peat in the interior of the peat deposit, approximately 4 km from the nearest margin, were dated by carbon-14 methods.  Dates range from 4470 ± 30 yr B.P. near the basal contact to 690 ± 20 yr B.P. near the upper surface. ... the average rate of peat accumulation was approximately 4.3 mm/yr for the first 4 m of peat and decreased to an average of 1.7 mm/yr for the upper 6 m of peat.” ↩

3. 4c.

   Page 57:  Bengkalis, site BK-6:  “The initial 3 m of peat accumulated rapidly at an average rate of 5.1 mm/yr, and the upper 5 m of peat accumulated at a slower average rate of 1.2 mm/yr.” ↩

Dargie, Greta C. et al.  “Age, extent and carbon storage of the central Congo Basin peatland complex.”  Nature 542(7639):86–90.  2017.  A field study of the swamp forests of the Cuvette Centrale, in the central Congo Basin, that combines measurements taken on the ground with satellite data.  It found peat up to 5.9 m deep, with a median of 2.0 m, and dated the start of peat growth to 10,600 calibrated years before present, where present means AD 1950.  Its authors call the peat complex the most extensive in the tropics, at 145,500 km², and the article uses that area as the measured size of one tropical peatland.  The study covers one basin, and the authors say its peat layer is relatively shallow.

1. 5a.

   Section abstract:  “Radiocarbon dates indicate that peat began accumulating from 10,600 cal yr BP ... Although the peat layer is relatively shallow (maximum depth 5.9 m;  median 2.0 m), combining in situ and remotely sensed data, we estimate the area of peat to be 145,500 km² (95% CI:  131,900–156,400 km²), making this the most extensive peatland complex in the tropics.”  Table 1:  Gives a long-term accumulation rate of 0.21 ± 0.05 mm/yr for the Congo and 1.74 ± 0.72 mm/yr for the Pastaza-Marañón peatlands of western Amazonia. ↩ ↩

Tewalt, S.J. et al.  “A digital resource model of the Upper Pennsylvanian Pittsburgh coal bed, Monongahela Group, northern Appalachian Basin coal region.”  Chapter C of USGS Professional Paper 1625-C, 2000 Resource Assessment of Selected Coal Beds and Zones in the Northern and Central Appalachian Basin Coal Regions.  2001.  A report by the U.S. Geological Survey that builds a computer model of the Pittsburgh coal bed from public stratigraphic and geochemical records and a geographic information system, and estimates the coal resources it holds.  It was prepared in cooperation with the geological surveys of Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  The article uses its figures for the area of the Pittsburgh coal bed, to set against the size of a tropical peatland.

1. 6a.

   Page C1:  “The coal-bed horizon is extensive and continuous, extending over 11,000 mi² through 53 counties in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland”.  “there are blocks of extensive, thick (6 to 8 ft) coal in southwestern Pennsylvania and the northern panhandle of West Virginia.”  Page C4:  “The surface of coal deposition was extensive and is estimated to be over 5,000 mi².” ↩ ↩

Neuzil, S.G. et al.  “Inorganic geochemistry of domed peat in Indonesia and its implication for the origin of mineral matter in coal.”  GSA Special Paper 286, 23–44.  1993.  A study of the chemistry of peat from three domed peat deposits in Indonesia, measuring the ash and sulfur in 93 samples.  Ash is the mineral residue left when peat is burned, and the study asks where the mineral matter in coal comes from.  It found that the ash and sulfur are low through most of the peat, averaging 1.1% and 0.14% on a moisture-free basis.  The article uses it against the claim that coal is too clean to have come from swamp peat, since rain-fed Indonesian peat is cleaner than mined coal.

1. 7a.

   Page 23, section abstract:  “Ash yield and sulfur content are low through most of the peat deposits and average 1.1% and 0.14%, respectively, on a moisture-free basis.  Ash and sulfur contents only exceed 5% and 0.3%, respectively, near the base of the deposits.”  Ninety-three samples from three domes. ↩ ↩

2. 7b.

   Page 24:  “Ombrogenous peat forms when precipitation exceeds evapotranspiration throughout the year and rain is the dominant or only source of water in the peat resulting in a raised upper surface and domed geometry.” ↩

Zatoń, Michał et al.  “Microconchus cravenensis n. sp.: a giant among microconchid tubeworms.”  Journal of Paleontology 94(6):1051–1058.  2020.  A description of a new species of microconchid, a group of small tubeworms that lived from the Late Ordovician to the Middle Jurassic.  The species comes from Mississippian reefs in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom, and has the largest tube diameter recorded for the group, up to 7.7 mm, with an aperture of 8.3 mm.  The article uses it as an open statement, by the first author, of a conclusion reached in Taylor & Vinn 2006 (J. Geol. Soc. 163:225) and Zatoń, Vinn & Tomescu 2012 (Geobios 45:603): that microconchids lived in normal marine, brackish and fresh water alike.

1. 8a.

   Page 1051:  “Until Weedon (1990, 1991) affiliated the microconchids with tentaculitoids, these spirorbiform or serpuliform tubeworms were generally treated as sedentary polychaetes or vermetid gastropods ... During their long evolutionary history, microconchids were very successful in colonizing various paleoenvironments, ranging from normal marine, through brackish to more freshwater settings.” ↩ ↩

Hetherington, Alexander J. et al.  “Networks of highly branched stigmarian rootlets developed on the first giant trees.”  PNAS 113(24):6695–6700.  2016.  A research paper that re-measured the rootlets of Stigmaria, the root systems of the giant tree lycopsids of the Carboniferous coal swamps.  It used compression fossils (flattened fossils) and coal balls, which are lumps of permineralized peat, and measured 785 rootlets in 94 coal ball thin sections.  It found that the rootlets branch up to four times and are covered in root hairs, with the same branching pattern as the living herb genus Isoetes.  The article uses it to show that these were real roots, growing in peat.

1. 9a.

   Page 6695, section abstract:  “stigmarian rootlets were highly branched, developed at a density of ∼25,600 terminal rootlets per meter of rhizomorph, and were covered in root hairs.” ↩ ↩

2. 9b.

   Page 6696:  The rootlets show.  “up to four orders of branching”.  with diameter decreasing.  “by ∼25% with each order”.  Coal balls are.  “permineralized peat from the coal swamps in which [rootlets] are preserved in situ”.  and in them the rootlets.  “branched frequently”.  Page 6695:  The architecture is.  “conserved among their only extant relatives, herbaceous plants in the Isoetes genus”. ↩ ↩

Sanders, Roger W., and Steven A. Austin.  “Paleobotany supports the floating mat model for the origin of Carboniferous coal beds.”  Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, 525–552.  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship.  Edited by J.H. Whitmore.  2018.  A paper in the proceedings of a conference on creationism.  It argues for the floating mat model, in which the coal-age plants lived on living mats of vegetation that floated, and the coal was laid down as the mats sank.  It reviews the history of the debate and examines the anatomy of the tree lycopsids and the tree fern Psaronius, which the authors say had air-filled chambers and roots not suited to growing into soil.  The article uses it as the creationist answer to the rootlet measurements.

1. 10a.

   Page 525, section abstract:  Lycopsid and tree-fern anatomies:  “are characterized by air-filled chambers for buoyancy with rooting structures that are not suited for growth into and through terrestrial soil.” ↩

2. 10b.

   Page 528:  “Clarey and Tomkins (2016) argue that arborescent lycopsids were rooted in rich clay soils of coastline swamps.  We believe that the lycopsid's rhizomorphs were incapable of growing through even dense peats or peaty soils.”  The running footer on this page reads.  “528 / Sanders and Austin ◀ Paleobotany supports the floating mat model ▶ 2018 ICC”.  Page 529:  On Hetherington et al. 2016:  “one might argue that by analogy, because Isoetes is rooted in mud, then so were the arborescent lycopsids.  However, Isoetes is a tiny emergent aquatic of shallow, permanent pools”.  and, of the rhizomorph apex:  “It simply is not designed to push through soil.”  Page 528:  The rootlets are renamed.  “water leaves”. ↩ ↩

3. 10c.

   Page 529, section Figure 2 caption:  “Important question to ask, 'At what stage of the life history of Lepidophloios does the floating plant become a tree rooted in terrestrial soil?'  The answer could be 'Never.'” ↩

Clarey, Timothy L., and Jeffrey P. Tomkins.  “An investigation into an in situ lycopod forest site and structural anatomy invalidates the floating-forest hypothesis.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 53(2):110–122.  2016.  A 2016 paper by two scientists at the Institute for Creation Research that argues against the floating-forest idea, using the Fossil Grove site in Glasgow, where the fossil stumps are of lycopods (tree-sized club mosses).  Every observational statement about the site in the paper is drawn from Gastaldo 1986 (Palaios 1:31–38) and Owen et al. 2007, and it carries that attribution.  The article uses it as the creationist movement's own concession that the Glasgow stumps are rooted in place, and as the source of the criteria for telling rooted trees from transported ones.

1. 11a.

   Page 113:  “a monotypic assemblage of eleven lycopod tree stump casts with attached axial root systems (Gastaldo, 1986).  However, only ten stumps are presently preserved”.  “the tree spacing suggests a density of 4,500 trees per square kilometer (Owen et al., 2007)”.  Of the stumps being rooted in a pre-Flood soil, the authors quote Gastaldo:  “If so, it is possibly the best preserved example of an in situ lycopod forest in the world (Gastaldo, 1986).”  Pages 113–114:  “Each tree has preserved branching roots anchoring them in an irregularly laminated silty or sandy mudstone with stigmarian (subterranean stem) 'rootlets' penetrating the 'paleosol' horizon (Gastaldo, 1986).” ↩ ↩

2. 11b.

   Page 114:  The stumps.  “show marked distortion in the NE-SW direction, matching the flow orientation.  However, the tree roots (stigmarian axes) ... are not distorted in a NE-SW direction, and only show distortion vertically from burial (Gastaldo, 1986).  This indicates that the tree roots were embedded in the underlying soil layer prior to burial.”  The authors concede the exposure.  “is exposed only down to the silty mudstone surface ... making identification of soil structure impossible.” ↩

3. 11c.

   Page 120:  The authors.  “recommend abandoning the floating-forest hypothesis.” ↩

4. 11d.

   Page 112:  Criteria for in-place growth.  Criterion 4 is rapid burial and excellent preservation;  criterion 5 reads:  “Finding a lack of sedimentary rock layers underneath the trees.  The presence of Flood-related layers underneath the trees would eliminate the possibility of in situ growth.” ↩ ↩

Wise, Kurt P.  “Fossil Grove and other Paleozoic forests as allochthonous Flood deposits.”  Answers Research Journal 11:237–256.  2018.  A 2018 reply to Clarey and Tomkins by Kurt P. Wise, writing in the creationist Answers Research Journal.  It re-examines the Glasgow stumps against twelve criteria for whether a fossil was buried where it grew, and concludes that the stumps were allochthonous (carried in from elsewhere), deposited well into the Flood.  The article uses it as the creationist answer to Clarey and Tomkins: the same stumps floated in.

1. 12a.

   Page 237:  From the abstract:  “flattened axial systems, unattached stigmarian appendages, and the thinness, lack of bioturbation and lack of soil development in the sandy mudstone suggest the stumps were emplaced allochthonously ... Unlike Clarey and Tomkins' (2016) claim, Fossil Grove stumps were allochthonously deposited well into the Flood.”  The same page speaks of fossil forests showing.  “rapid and prolonged burial.” ↩ ↩

2. 12b.

   Page 254:  “Borehole data combined with the bedrock surface pattern from the Glasgow region indicate that Fossil Grove is underlain by at least 1700 ft of Flood sediments and nearly 3000 ft of Flood basalts”.  “Fossil Grove has never been studied with the kind of detail that the site deserves ... This paper's author could examine the site for only a very short time and under extremely poor light conditions.” ↩ ↩ ↩

3. 12c.

   Page 254:  From the conclusion:  “Multiple evidences (low taxonomic and niche disparity, limited range of plant ages and plant parts, the absence of bioturbation and paleosol development, unnatural horizontality of axial structures, correlation of stump position with possible underlying megaripples, rapid development of all the sediments above and below the stumps, and substantial decomposition of stumps prior to burial) collectively point quite definitively to an allochthonous origin for the stumps ... Fossil Grove is an example of allochthonous deposition well into the Flood.” ↩

4. 12d.

   Page 254:  “This sort of restudy would transfer a number of fossil sites from evidence against a global Flood, to evidence against the conventional understanding of Carboniferous sediments and fossils.  Rejecting conventional paleosol claims, this sort of restudy would demand a reevaluation of paleosols in general.”  Page 255:  The hollow lycopods.  “died long before burial, and thus floated for a very long time (and probably distance) from their original growth positions.” ↩

Johns, Warren H.  “The challenge of fossil forests for creationist research.”  Answers Research Journal 12:179–209.  2019.  A 2019 paper by Warren H. Johns, writing in the creationist Answers Research Journal, that sets out criteria for telling a fossil forest that grew where it stands (autochthonous) from one carried in by water (allochthonous).  It takes the seven criteria of Clarey and Tomkins and adds nine more, mainly drawn from secular studies of fossil forests.  The article uses it for Johns's objection that criterion 5 lets a Flood model decide the answer in advance, and for his list of the two forests most likely to be rooted in place.

1. 13a.

   Page 180:  Of Clarey and Tomkins' criteria:  “number 5 is the most problematic because it allows any Flood model to be superimposed on the interpretation of upright stumps rather than allowing the evidence of in situ upright stumps to”.  constrain the model. ↩ ↩

2. 13b.

   Page 193:  “Currently, the two fossil forests with the highest probability of being autochthonous are the Junggar Fossil Forest of western China in the upper part of the Jurassic and the Hindostan Whetstone Quarry with its accompanying evidence of lycopsid root and rootlet growth in the Lower Pennsylvanian of southern Indiana”.  He says this would mark.  “either the end of the Flood or its beginning.” ↩

3. 13c.

   Page 179:  From the abstract:  “Nothing has appeared in secular journals by creation scientists on the general topic of fossil forests since that time.  Creationism's focus on the Yellowstone 'fossil forests' has faded into the past as far as field research goes.  In the meantime, secular scientists have published scores of studies on purported fossil forests in the last four decades.” ↩

Dawson, John William.  Acadian Geology: The Geological Structure, Organic Remains, and Mineral Resources of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.  London: Macmillan.  2nd edition.  1868.  A book-length survey of the rock structure, fossils and mineral resources of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.  The article uses it for Dawson's own bed-by-bed log of the Joggins cliffs in Nova Scotia, where he recorded upright trees rooted in the roof of a coal, with land reptiles inside them.

1. 14a.

   Page 165:  “Gray sandstone and shale, with many ironstone nodules in the shale, and erect Sigillaria and underclays at five levels.  One of the latter has large stumps of Stigmaria and a thin coaly layer resting on it) 68 0.” ↩

2. 14b.

   Page 168:  Coal-group 15:  “(Sandstone and shale, erect Calamites and Sigillaria with Stigmaria.  The erect trees contain reptilian remains of the genera Dendrerpeton, Hylonomus, and Hylerpeton;  also Pupa vetusta ... and remains of insects) 10 0 ... The erect trees above mentioned are rooted in the roof of this coal.” ↩

3. 14c.

   Page 186:  “no less than six erect trees were observed at different levels, the lowest being rooted in the shale forming the coal-roof;  fifteen feet of the trunk of one of these trees still remain”.  “there are no less than thirteen distinct forest surfaces marked by underclays or erect trees, and at least five periods of submergence indicated by mussel-beds”.  “throughout the section ... the forest soils are much more frequently preserved than the forests themselves.” ↩ ↩

Davies, Sarah J. et al.  “The Pennsylvanian Joggins Formation of Nova Scotia:  sedimentological log and stratigraphic framework of the historic fossil cliffs.”  Atlantic Geology 41:115–142.  2005.  A 2005 re-measurement of the Joggins cliffs in Nova Scotia, the first complete remeasuring since the pioneering studies of William Logan and John William Dawson.  The team measured 915.5 metres of strata, divided them into 14 cycles, and drew a bed-by-bed log with a map of the foreshore.  The article uses it for a modern count of Logan's 45 coal groups and for its reading that the standing-tree levels were entombed where distributary channels brought sand into coastal wetlands.

1. 15a.

   Page 116:  Logan.  “recognized 45 coal groups ... in Division 4, and recorded an aggregate thickness of 37' 9.5" (11.5 m) of coal”.  Page 115:  From the abstract: 915.5 m of strata in 14 cycles, and.  “The main levels of standing trees, dominated by lycopsids, were entombed where distributary channels brought sand into coastal wetlands.” ↩ ↩

Lyons, P. C. et al.  “An Appalachian isochron:  A kaolinized Carboniferous air-fall volcanic-ash deposit (tonstein).”  GSA Bulletin 104:1515–1527.  1992.  A 1992 paper by eight co-authors on the Fire Clay tonstein, a clay layer formed from volcanic ash inside a Kentucky coal bed.  They sampled it at thirteen places, eleven of them spanning 200 km in Kentucky and West Virginia, and dated it to 312 ± 1 million years.  The article uses it for the layer's 37,000 km² extent and as a sign that the ash fell onto a quiet bog surface, not into moving flood water.

1. 16a.

   Section Abstract:  “Eleven samples from Kentucky and West Virginia, spanning a distance of 200 km, and two samples from Tennessee and Virginia indicate a characteristic mineralogical signature ... Detrital illite and quartz are rarely present or are in very small amounts, which indicates rapid deposition in a mire.  Several normal graded cycles in this tonstein suggest repeated episodes of pyroclastic activity that produced a composite ash layer. ... ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar sanidine plateau dating indicates an age of 312 ± 1 Ma for the Fire Clay tonstein ... A new isopachous map of the Fire Clay ash-fall deposit indicates an area of 37,000 km² ... a minimum preserved compacted volume of 2.8 km³, which corresponds to an original uncompacted volume of about 20 km³.”  Outerbridge 2003 (USGS OFR 03-351, p. 2) gives the same 37,000 km² with a 6:1 ash-to-rock compaction. ↩ ↩

Xie, Kechang.  “Coal Geology and Geochemistry.”  Coal, Oil Shale, Natural Bitumen, Heavy Oil and Peat I.  Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (UNESCO-EOLSS).  n.d.  Table 1, page 7:  The 1980 column: Carboniferous 2,460 × 10⁹ t (24.3%), Permian 3,210 (31.7%), Triassic 40 (0.4%), Jurassic 1,701 (16.8%), Cretaceous 1,347 (13.3%), Tertiary 1,367 (13.5%); total about 10,100 × 10⁹ t, i.e. a resources tally.  The same table's 1937 column gives the Tertiary 54%, which shows how much the split depends on whether lignite tonnage is counted.  An encyclopedia chapter on coal geology by Kechang Xie of the Taiyuan University of Technology in China.  It reproduces a table of world coal resources by geological age, from a 1980 tally made by M. A. Bestougeff for the 26th International Geological Congress in Paris.  The article uses it for the share of world coal laid down after the Palaeozoic era, which it puts at about 44%. ↩ ↩

Flores, Romeo M.  “Coalbed methane in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming and Montana: an assessment of the Tertiary-Upper Cretaceous coalbed methane total petroleum system.”  USGS Professional Paper 1625-A, chapter PS.  2004.  A 2004 U.S. Geological Survey chapter assessing the coalbed methane of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana.  The article uses it for the thickness of the basin's coal beds, including the 202-foot Big George bed, and for the survey's comparison of them with a raised bog in Sumatra.

1. 18a.

   Page 22:  “In the central part of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, the Wyodak-Anderson coal zone coalesces from five coal beds of the Anderson and Canyon coal into a bed as much as 202 ft thick known as 'Big George' coal ... This coal is a single bed varying from 46 to 202 ft thick within a 950-square-mile area at a depth of 1,100 ft below the surface (Pierce and others, 1982).” ↩ ↩

2. 18b.

   Page 26:  “The Wyodak-Anderson coal bed in this area is as much as 202 ft thick and the Wyodak-Anderson coal zone is as much as 550 [ft] thick;  it contains as many as 11 coal beds that average 25 ft thick.” ↩

3. 18c.

   Figures PS-12:  “Diagrammatic cross section of a raised bog between two river estuaries in Sumatra, Indonesia.  The thickest peat measured here is 13 meters (modified from Neuzil and others, 1993).”  The USGS itself draws the Sumatran dome as the analogue for the Powder River coals. ↩

4. 18d.

   Page 11:  “Perhaps the most controversial issue pertaining to the deposition of the Fort Union sediments is the origin of the coal, particularly the accumulation of very thick coal (that is, beds more than 200 ft thick).” ↩

Australian Government, Bioregional Assessments Programme.  “1.2.1.1.2 Brown coal.”  Gippsland Basin bioregion resource assessment.  n.d.  A government assessment of the Gippsland Basin bioregion, and its page on brown coal, which cites Holdgate 2003 for the seam thicknesses.  Its primary papers are Holdgate 2003 in Geology of Victoria and Holdgate et al. 2007, "The Middle Miocene Yallourn coal seam — the last coal in Australia," in Int. J. Coal Geol. 70:95.  The article uses it for the very thick seams of the Latrobe Valley in Australia.

1. 19a.

   “The Traralgon 1 Seam at Gormandale and Flynns Creek Syncline can be over 100 m thick ... The Morwell 1B and overlying Morwell 1A seams combine in the Morwell-Driffield area as the Morwell 1 Seam, which is up to 165 m thick.  On the western flank of the Loy Yang Dome the Morwell 1A, 1B and 2 seams all combine producing up to 230 m of continuous low ash coal (Holdgate, 2003).” ↩ ↩

Computed for this article.  Inputs:  Big George 202 ft = 61.6 m (Flores 2004, PS-22);  Yallourn ~100 m and the Loy Yang composite 230 m (Bioregional Assessments, citing Holdgate 2003);  peat-to-coal compaction 2:1 to 10:1 (the high end is the figure Oard 2024 and Thomas 2013 use;  the low end is Widera 2015's "most accurate" lignite range of 2:1 to 4:1, with Nadon 1998 arguing burial compaction is "minimal");  4,300 years from the Flood to the present (Masoretic).  Peat thickness = coal × ratio;  required rate = peat thickness ÷ 4,300 yr.  The calculation assumes the whole post-Flood period was peat growth, with no time for forest establishment or for the overlying Fort Union and Wasatch sediment.  Comparison rates from Dommain et al. 2011. ↩ ↩ ↩

Snelling, Andrew A.  Earth's Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation and the Flood.  Institute for Creation Research, Dallas.  2009.  A two-volume book of Flood geology by Andrew A. Snelling, whose first volume defends the global Genesis Flood.  The article uses volume 2 for the author's own figures on how much coal and oil source rock the Flood would have laid down, and for his floating-forest explanation of the coal plants.

1. 21a.

   Page 742:  In volume 2, the pre-Flood floating forest.  “explains ... how the pre-Flood world could have supported the plant biomass now fossilized in the extensive coal beds.  The eventual destruction of the cores of these floating forests, with their large, tall lycopods, would have generated extensive floating log mats of this plant debris.” ↩

2. 21b.

   Page 758:  In volume 2.  “if the Flood/post-Flood boundary is placed at approximately the Cretaceous/Tertiary strata boundary, then more than 70 percent of all the coal beds, and more than 85 percent of all the oil and gas source rocks, would have been deposited under the catastrophic conditions prevailing during the Flood. ... Even though there are large volumes of coal beds, and oil and gas source rocks, particularly oil shales and tar sands, among Tertiary strata, the depositional basins involved are only of local and regional extent, compared with the continental and greater distribution of deposition of Cretaceous strata.  Therefore, these localized Tertiary strata would still not preclude a Cretaceous/Tertiary Flood/post-Flood boundary.” ↩ ↩ ↩

3. 21c.

   Page 758:  In volume 2, immediately before the passage on the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary.  “if as claimed the Carboniferous and Permian coal beds are the result of the beaching, break-up, and burial of pre-Flood floating forests at the beginning of the post-Flood era, then even more coal beds were formed in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary strata later in the post-Flood period.  If this were the case, then the origin of the biomass they represent remains problematic, as there would be insufficient time to have grown the required plants and then have them catastrophically uprooted and buried.” ↩

Archer, David.  The Global Carbon Cycle.  Princeton University Press, Princeton.  2010.  A book in the Princeton Primers in Climate series on the global carbon cycle, the way carbon moves among the air, the oceans, the land and the rocks.  The article traces a young-earth claim about pre-Flood plant mass to the carbon figures in this book.

1. 22a.

   Page 5:  “There is about as much living carbon on land as there is atmospheric carbon, perhaps 500 Gton C.”  Page 17:  “Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel, holding roughly fifty times more carbon than either of the other two forms of fossil fuel, oil and natural gas.  The organic carbon in coal comes from plant material, mostly moss, deposited in standing-water swamps where it was protected from degradation by being cut off from the oxygen in the air.”  Page 19:  “With these caveats, the canonical assumption among carbon cycle modelers is that there is about 5,000 Gton C available as coal, and perhaps 200 Gton C each of oil and gas.  An authoritative source, a bit dated, is Rogner 1997.” ↩ ↩

2. 22b.

   Page 6:  “Most of the fossil carbon is coal, and of that there is enough to increase the CO₂ concentration of the atmosphere to about ten times its natural concentration, if it were all released at the same time.”  Page 17:  Mature coal's hydrogen and oxygen.  “were driven off by extended cooking in the sub-surface Earth, at temperatures of ca. 300°C for tens of millions [of years].” ↩

Computed for this article.  Land area 100 to 150 million km² (the present 149 million km² as the generous case;  Clarey and Werner reconstruct a smaller pre-Flood continent, and the range should be replaced by their figure if one is published).  Coal resource base 3,500 to 5,000 GtC (Rogner 1997;  Falkowski 2012 gives 3,510;  Archer 5,000) over 150 million km² = 23 to 33 kgC/m²;  over 100 million km² = 35 to 50.  Present global mean:  450 GtC ÷ 149 million km² = 3.0 kgC/m².  Kerogen 15,000,000 GtC (Falkowski 2012, Table 2.1) over 150 million km² = 100,000 kgC/m²;  at graphite's density that is a layer of pure carbon roughly 45 m thick, or 50 to 100 m at the density of coal.  The radiocarbon article works the same ledger in its own carbon-budget footnote for ¹⁴C dilution. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩

Falkowski, Paul G.  “The global carbon cycle: biological processes.”  Fundamentals of Geobiology.  Wiley-Blackwell.  Edited by Andrew H. Knoll, Donald E. Canfield and Kurt O. Konhauser.  2012.  Chapter 2 of a geobiology textbook, by Paul G. Falkowski of Rutgers University, on the fast biological carbon cycle and the reservoirs of carbon it works with.  Its Table 2.1 gives the carbon held in each reservoir, and the article uses the table for the kerogen and coal figures.  Daines et al. 2017 gives the same kerogen inventory, 1.25 × 10²¹ mol C.

1. 24a.

   Table 2.1, page 6:  “Carbon pools”.  in gigatonnes of carbon: atmosphere 835; oceans 38,400; sedimentary carbonates > 60,000,000; kerogens 15,000,000; terrestrial biosphere 2,000 (living biomass 600–1,000, dead 1,200); fossil fuels 4,130 (coal 3,510, oil 230, gas ~300, other 250). ↩ ↩

Coffin, Harold G.  “Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake.”  Origins 10(1):9–17.  1983.  A report by Harold G. Coffin on the floating logs and stumps in Spirit Lake at Mount St. Helens.  Coffin published a longer account of the same observations that year, "Erect floating stumps in Spirit Lake, Washington", in Geology 11:298–299.  The article uses it for Coffin's observation that the erect floating stumps had root balls.

1. 25a.

   “Except for one example, all of the examined erect floating stumps had root balls.  In contrast, most of the horizontally floating logs were without roots.”  “Some stumps that had been floating erect were now standing upright on the bottom, their tops well below the surface of the water.”  No count or fraction of erect versus prone logs is given. ↩ ↩

Hayatsu, R. et al.  “Artificial coalification study: Preparation and characterization of synthetic macerals.”  Organic Geochemistry 6:463–471.  1984.  A laboratory experiment that heated lignin, the woody material of plant cell walls, with clay minerals at 150 °C for two to eight months, without oxygen.  The article uses it, with Orem's experiment, as lab evidence that coal chemistry can run in months at modest temperatures.

1. 26a.

   “It was found that lignin heated with clay minerals at 150°C for 2–8 months in the absence of oxygen was readily transformed into an insoluble material resembling low rank coals.  The H/C and O/C ratios were in the natural evolutionary range found for vitrinites with the samples from longer reaction times resembling the vitrinites of higher rank.” ↩ ↩

Nadon, Gregory C.  “Magnitude and timing of peat-to-coal compaction.”  Geology 26:727–730.  1998.  A journal article that uses decompaction modeling, which works backward to restore a buried layer's original thickness, on coal seams next to channel sandstones, together with dinosaur tracks in coal-mine roofs.  It argues that peat compacts far less than the common 10-to-1 ratio assumes.  The article uses it to show that the mainstream literature disagrees with itself on the peat-to-coal ratio, which changes the arithmetic of seam duration several-fold.

1. 27a.

   “The peat-to-coal transition is commonly assumed to be accompanied by compaction that decreases the thickness of the organic deposit to values of 10% or less of the original peat thickness.  Decompaction modeling using such values for coal seams in contact with penecontemporaneous channel sandstones leads to impossible depositional geometries ... Dinosaur tracks in the roofs of coal mines show a shallow depth of penetration and a preservation of foot morphology that is not possible unless the peat the animals walked upon was very firm.  These data confirm the macroscopic observations from coal balls that the compaction associated with the peat-to-coal transformation is minimal.  Equally important, the data also show that most of the compaction occurs essentially at the surface and not at the depths where coalification takes place.” ↩ ↩

2. 27b.

   Page 727:  “This paper outlines field evidence from sandstone-body geometry of channels and dinosaur tracks to show that the lower reported peat:coal ratios of 1.2:1 to 2.2:1 are more realistic estimates of the magnitude of compaction.”  Page 728:  “Decompaction modeling of the coal with the standard 10:1 ratio results in an impossible geometry for the sandstone body;  the fluid depositing the levees would literally have to run uphill.”  Page 729:  “there is no need to infer that enormous thicknesses of peat were necessary to form very thick coal seams”.  It says that peats.  “undergo most compaction at, or very near, the surface rather than at depth”.  “The spatial and temporal variation in organic material precludes a global decompaction value for all sedimentary basins.”  The 1.2:1 to 2.2:1 ratio is a field-constrained estimate from decompaction consistency, not a direct measurement of one peat column. ↩

IPCC.  2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.  Volume 2.  2006.  Default values for the carbon content and the heating value of each coal rank, from the guidelines that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes for counting national greenhouse gas emissions.  The link is to chapter 1, Introduction, of volume 2, and the article uses its tables for how much carbon each rank holds per tonne.

1. 28a.

   Table 1.3:  Default carbon content, kgC/GJ: anthracite 26.8, other bituminous 25.8, sub-bituminous 26.2, lignite 27.6.  Table 1.2:  Net calorific value, TJ/Gg: anthracite 26.7, other bituminous 25.8, sub-bituminous 18.9, lignite 11.9.  Multiplied: anthracite 0.72 tC per tonne as received, bituminous 0.67, sub-bituminous 0.50, lignite 0.33. ↩

Scheven, Joachim.  “The Carboniferous floating forest — an extinct pre-Flood ecosystem.”  CEN Technical Journal 10(1):70–81.  1996.  A 1996 paper by Dr Joachim Scheven, written from the biblical Flood view.  It argues that the Carboniferous coal forests were mats of arboreal lycopods (tree-sized club mosses) that floated on the pre-Flood ocean, and that the rooted underclays under coal seams were not soils.  The article cites it as the first statement of the floating forest, which Kurt Wise developed later. ↩

Wise, Kurt P.  “The pre-Flood floating forest: a study in paleontological pattern recognition.”  Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, 371–381.  2003.  A 2003 conference paper by Kurt P. Wise of Bryan College's Center for Origins Research and Education, written within the young-age creation model.  It argues that plant groups first appear in the fossil record in an order that closely matches the order of evolutionary branching shown in published family trees (cladograms), and that a pre-Flood floating forest, destroyed by the Flood, would explain that order and the coal beds.  The article quotes Wise's own statement of the floating forest, which he developed from Scheven's 1996 proposal.

1. 30a.

   Page 376:  “The destruction of the floating forest by Flood waters would also generate the extensive floating log mat of Paleozoic plant debris that [Austin] has proposed would explain the Kentucky 12 coal in western Kentucky ... Scheven's floating forest makes up a portion - the core - of the floating forest biome proposed in this paper.”  Spellings as printed.  The bracketed name replaces Wise's reference [1], which his reference list gives as Austin's 1979 dissertation. ↩

2. 30b.

   Page 377:  “Nor does it provide explanation for the rhyzomous nature of arborescent lycopod 'roots' which do not seem as if they could penetrate traditional soils.”  Listed as future work:  “Coal deposits can be examined to estimate the extent of the pre-Flood forests.” ↩

Austin, Steven A., and Roger W. Sanders.  “Historical survey of the floating mat model for the origin of Carboniferous coal beds.”  Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, 277–286.  2018.  A 2018 historical survey, published in a creationist conference volume, of the idea that coal formed from floating vegetation mats.  It covers about three centuries of argument between that idea and the view that coal grew where it lies, and says the floating mat model was intentionally suppressed in the early twentieth century.  The article cites it in the floating-forest passage for the history of the floating mat model, the older idea that Wise's floating forest builds on.

1. 31a.

   Page 283:  “Austin (1979, pp. 334-347) introduced the term 'floating mat model' for the origin of coal and left the terminology broad enough to include either living or dead mats.”  “Geologist Tim Clarey (2015) is an advocate of the floating mat model for the origin of Carboniferous coal because he believes that dead lycopods were assembled into rafts and floated through the Flood ... Understandably, Clarey has difficulty with the mechanical and ecological feasibility of the floating forest biome of Kuntze, Austin, Scheven and Wise.”  The dissertation is Austin, S.A., "Depositional environment of the Kentucky No. 12 coal bed (Middle Pennsylvanian) of western Kentucky, with special reference to the origin of coal lithotypes", PhD, Pennsylvania State University, 1979, 411 pp., unpublished. ↩

Clarey, Timothy L.  “Examining the floating forest hypothesis:  a geological perspective.”  Journal of Creation 29(3):50–55.  2015.  A viewpoint article by Timothy L. Clarey in Journal of Creation, a creationist journal, which tests the floating forest against three geological checks.  The checks are whether a raft of plants could hold a usable fresh-water lens, whether tsunami-like waves from plate movements would have broken up the mats early in the Flood, and whether the coal beds follow the closing of the Iapetus Ocean, which the floating forest does not explain.  The article cites it as the first of three papers, from 2015 to 2017, in which Clarey rejects the floating forest.

1. 32a.

   Page 51:  A Darcy's-law estimate of seepage through woody peat gives.  “0.012 m/day, or over 1 cm/day”.  which he judges.  “far too large to sustain freshwater ponds, springs and even much of a perched freshwater lens as proposed, without continual precipitation.”  Pages 51–52:  The author writes that.  “this requires the deposition of three complete megasequence cycles in North America beneath the floating forests.”  Page 54:  “The proposed floating forests seem to have become phantom forests.” ↩

2. 32b.

   Page 55:  “Lycopod forests were possibly similar to cedar swamps and mangrove forests populating lowlands today ... The lycopod trees may have been simply torn loose and deposited en masse within the lower sedimentary strata of the Absaroka Megasequence as the floodwaters continued to rise.”  “All geologic data support a 'grounded' lycopod forest that was growing attached to the pre-Flood land surface.” ↩

Woolley, Joanna F.  “The origin of the Carboniferous coal measures — part 1: Lessons from history.”  Journal of Creation 24(3):76–81.  2010.  The first part of a three-part Journal of Creation series that reviews how early geological researchers explained the coal measures, and the problems their fossils posed for that explanation.  Parts 2 and 3, on lycopod root structure, are Journal of Creation 25(1):69–76 and 25(3):74–78 (2011).  The article cites the series for the arguments both camps make against in-place peat, which it takes from Woolley's closing summary.

1. 33a.

   Page 80:  Her closing summary lists the seven problems:  “incredible biodensity of fossils in the coal measures coupled with a lack of biodiversity”.  “disarticulation of the fossils coupled with their excellent preservation”.  “separation of different parts of the same object, such as roots and trunks, into different stratigraphic layers”.  “presence of marine fossils in supposedly terrestrial deposits”.  “immense lateral geographical extent of the coal seams”.  “high purity of the coal seams with minimal contamination from mud and sand”.  “the inability to find an analogous modern environment.” ↩

2. 33b.

   Page 78:  “as noted very early by Charles Darwin (in his well-known Voyage of the Beagle), peat-forming swamps do not exist in the tropics:  they are confined to the temperate zones.” ↩

3. 33c.

   Page 78:  “Dawson argued that these Spirorbis carbonarius fossils came from 'closed lagoons and estuaries' because they could be found on the inside of Sigillaria, supposedly indicating that these Lycopods were dead and hollow when the infestation occurred”.  Of Lyell's marine-invasion reading:  “continent-sized coal layers were supposedly invaded pervasively by coastal phenomena!” ↩ ↩

Oard, Michael J.  “A BEDS origin for coal.”  Creation magazine.  Sep 2, 2024.  A popular article by Michael Oard in Creation magazine, the magazine of Creation Ministries International.  BEDS stands for Briefly Exposed Diluvial Sediments, a model in which Flood waters briefly expose fresh sediment and floating log mats settle onto it, and Oard argues that the model also gives one mechanism for coal.  The article cites it as the popular statement of the BEDS origin of coal, and for its claim that the pre-Flood world had eight to ten times more plants and trees than today.

1. 34a.

   Section Coal contrary to uniformitarianism:  “There are peat swamps today in Indonesia and Malaysia among other places, but the peat in these swamps is at most only about 15 m (50 ft) thick.  The typical compression ratio of peat to coal is said to be about 10 to 1, which would mean that if the thickest peat known today were buried and compressed, it would yield a coal seam just 1.5 m thick.  Most coal seams are much thicker.”  “Just the Kentucky No. 12 coal seam occurs over an area of about 38,000 km² (14,500 mi²).  This is substantially greater than any modern peat swamp, and it alone is half the total area of all the peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia combined.”  The claim that "Most coal seams are much thicker" than 1.5 m is false for the Carboniferous seams at issue:  the Pittsburgh is 6 to 8 ft where thick (Tewalt et al. 2001) and the Fire Clay is typically under 1.5 m. ↩

2. 34b.

   Oard's reference 13 is Austin, S.A., 1979, PhD thesis, Pennsylvania State University.  The seam is the Western Kentucky No. 12 of the Illinois Basin, not the Fire Clay (Hazard No. 4) of eastern Kentucky. ↩

3. 34c.

   Oard's reference 22 is Nadon 1998; Oard's own arithmetic uses 10:1. ↩

4. 34d.

   Section Coal formed in the BEDS model:  “Judging from the amount of coal found in the world, the earth before the Flood supported about eight to ten times more plants and trees than today.”  Oard's reference 23 is "Archer, D., The Global Carbon Cycle, Princeton University Press, NJ, 2010." No page is given. ↩

Darwin, Charles.  Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the World.  John Murray, London.  2nd edition.  1845.  Darwin's popular account of his voyage on H.M.S. Beagle, which mixes a travel journal with his observations of natural history and geology.  This second edition is the one the article quotes; Darwin says he condensed and corrected some parts to make the volume more fitted for popular reading.  The article uses it to check Woolley's claim that Darwin wrote that peat swamps do not exist in the tropics.

1. 35a.

   Chapter XIII, page 287:  “The climate of the southern part of America appears particularly favourable to the production of peat.  In the Falkland Islands almost every kind of plant, even the coarse grass which covers the whole surface of the land, becomes converted into this substance:  scarcely any situation checks its growth;  some of the beds are as much as twelve feet thick ... With respect to the northern limit, at which the climate allows of that peculiar kind of slow decomposition which is necessary for its production, I believe that in Chiloe (lat. 41° to 42°), although there is much swampy ground, no well characterized peat occurs:  but in the Chonos Islands, three degrees farther southward, we have seen that it is abundant.  On the eastern coast in La Plata (lat. 35°) I was told by a Spanish resident, who had visited Ireland, that he had often sought for this substance, but had never been able to find any.” ↩

Dommain, René et al.  “Development and carbon sequestration of tropical peat domes in south-east Asia:  links to post-glacial sea-level changes and Holocene climate variability.”  Quaternary Science Reviews 30:999–1010.  2011.  A 2011 paper by René Dommain, John Couwenberg and Hans Joosten that measures how fast tropical peat domes grew over the Holocene, the period since the last glacial period.  Peat domes are raised bogs fed only by rain, and the paper reports mean and peak rates of peat growth from dated peat cores in Central Kalimantan and Kutai, both in Indonesian Borneo.  The article uses these measured rates to test whether a post-Flood coal seam could have formed in the time available.

1. 36a.

   Page 1001:  “The time weighted mean Holocene peat accumulation rate is 0.54 mm yr⁻¹ for Central Kalimantan peat domes, 1.89 mm yr⁻¹ for Kutai peat domes and 1.77 mm yr⁻¹ for coastal peat domes.”  Page 1002:  “The initial mean apparent rate of peat accumulation of the Kutai peat domes is 2.3 mm yr⁻¹, followed by a Holocene maximum of 4.5 mm yr⁻¹ between ~7500 and ~6800 cal BP.”  In the dissertation's own synthesis, tree tip-up pools.  “completely fill in with peat in about 100–200 years and produce peaks in carbon accumulation rates ... of about 100–1000 g C m-2 yr-1”.  One core (MDM11-2A) reached 26 mm/yr, local and decadal. ↩ ↩

U.S. Geological Survey.  “Coal resource assessment of selected coal beds and zones in the northern and central Appalachian Basin.”  Fact Sheet 004-02.  2002.  A short government fact sheet that assesses the coal resources of selected coal beds in the northern and central Appalachian Basin.  The article uses it for the area of the Fire Clay and Pittsburgh coal beds and for their ash content.

1. 37a.

   “The Fire Clay coal zone is distributed throughout approximately 5,500 mi² in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia”.  “The Pittsburgh coal bed extends for more than 5,000 square miles (mi²) in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and West Virginia.” ↩

2. 37b.

   Table 2:  Pittsburgh coal 9.02% ash; Fire Clay coal 10.62% ash, as received. ↩

Greb, Stephen F. et al.  “Desmoinesian coal beds of the Eastern Interior and surrounding basins: the largest tropical peat mires in Earth history.”  Extreme Depositional Environments: Mega End Members in Geologic Time (GSA Special Paper 370), 127–150.  Edited by M. A. Chan and A. W. Archer.  2003.  A study of the largest coal beds of the Illinois Basin and the basins around it, by researchers at the Kentucky Geological Survey, the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Kentucky.  The authors compare the areas of the Colchester, Springfield and Herrin coals with their correlatives in the Western Interior Basin, and they read the coals as peat mires fed mainly by groundwater, near the equator.  The article uses it for the size of the largest Carboniferous seams, and for the authors' statement that only cold northern bogs are as widespread.

1. 38a.

   Page 127:  Abstract, as quoted:  “Each has correlatives in the Western Interior Basin, such that their entire regional extent varies from 116,000 km² to 200,000 km².”  Page 140:  “The Colchester and equivalent paleomires may have covered an area of more than 200,000 km² across the Midcontinent.”  Page 128:  For scale, the Pittsburgh horizon (not the coal) covers.  “more than 21,450 km²”.  and the Wyodak-Anderson zone covers 24,000 km². ↩

2. 38b.

   Pages 141–142:  “In the modern world, the most widespread peatlands occur in northern, cold-temperate to subpolar latitudes ... Ziegler et al., (1987) reported a 300,000 km² area of peat on the southwest margin of Hudson Bay, Canada, as the largest continuous area of peat accumulation in the world.”  Page 142:  The Vasyugan complex.  “covers 51,000 km² and may be the largest individual, undrained peat bog in the world”.  Also on this page:  “individual mires during Colchester and Herrin peat accumulation may have been similar in size or even exceeded the Vasyugan bog complex.” ↩

3. 38c.

   Page 127:  “The only modern mire complexes that are as widespread are northern-latitude raised-bog mires, but Desmoinesian Midcontinent paleomires were topogenous and accumulated within 10° of the paleo-equator.”  Page 142:  The same page, on the Indonesian domes:  “may exceed 10 m in thickness for areas of hundreds of square kilometers, and may reach thicknesses of more than 15 m toward the center of peat domes”.  Topogenous peats:  “accumulate at only 0.5-1 mm/yr.” ↩

4. 38d.

   Page 127:  The mires formed on.  “vast, impermeable paleosols”.  Page 140:  The extent and uniformity of the Herrin blue band indicate deposition.  “in water above a relatively flat surface.” ↩

5. 38e.

   Page 134:  “Austin (1979) noted that the lower bench of the Herrin, below the 'blue band,' was duller than the upper bench at sites in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, but even these are still high in vitrinite content”.  The dissertation is in the reference list at p. 147. ↩

Kremenetski, K. V. et al.  “Peatlands of the Western Siberian lowlands:  current knowledge on zonation, carbon content and Late Quaternary history.”  Quaternary Science Reviews 22:703–723.  2003.  A review of the Russian literature on the peatlands of the West Siberian lowlands, covering where they grow, how deep the peat is, how much carbon it holds, and how the peatlands developed after the end of the last glacial period.  The authors note that little is known about the region outside the Russian language literature, which their review draws on.  The article cites it for the size and depth of the West Siberian peatlands.

1. 39a.

   Page 703:  From the abstract:  “The Western Siberian lowlands (WSL) are the world's largest high-latitude wetland, and possess over 900,000 km² of peatlands. ... the mean depth of peat accumulation in the WSL is 256 cm.” ↩

McCabe, Peter J.  “Depositional environments of coal and coal-bearing strata.”  Sedimentology of Coal and Coal-bearing Sequences, IAS Special Publication 7, 13–42.  Edited by R. A. Rahmani and R. M. Flores.  1984.  A 1984 review chapter in an edited volume on coal sedimentology, covering the swamp settings in which coal forms.  The article cites it as a mainstream concession that peats from floodplain and delta swamps carry so much mud and sand that they would become high-ash coal or shale, while peats from floating or raised swamps stay low in ash.

1. 40a.

   “Peats from modern swamps similar to those depicted in the models have a high percentage of inorganic material introduced by floods and storms.  If preserved in the geologic record, such peats would be transformed to carbonaceous shales or, at best, high ash coals.  Some coals may have originated as peats in floating or raised swamps.  Peats from these types of swamps have low ash contents even in areas close to active clastic deposition.” ↩ ↩

Cecil, C. B. et al.  “Allogenic and autogenic controls on sedimentation in the Central Sumatra Basin as an analogue for Pennsylvanian coal-bearing strata in the Appalachian Basin.”  GSA Special Paper 286, 3–22.  1993.  A 1993 paper by four authors that uses the Central Sumatra Basin in Indonesia, a region with modern peat deposits, as an analogue for the Pennsylvanian coal beds of the Appalachians.  It finds that the lower coal beds resemble the peat deposits of the Indonesian and Malaysian coastal plains, but that the upper ones formed in a more seasonal climate, where peat grew only in swamps during wet periods.  The article cites it for the comparison of the lower Appalachian coals with Indonesian and Malaysian peat, and for the limit the authors place on that comparison.

1. 41a.

   Page 21:  “Many Lower and lower Middle Pennsylvanian coal-bed horizons in the Appalachian basin ... generally are laterally extensive, show relatively abrupt changes in thickness, and are low in ash yield and sulfur contents (Cecil et al., 1985), attributes that are consistent with the laterally extensive ombrogenous peat deposits on the coastal plains of equatorial Indonesia and Malaysia.  These attributes are not consistent, however, with autogenic controls on swamps in deltaic, fluvial, or back-barrier sedimentary environments.”  The authors also write that the conditions.  “are not analogous to those that prevailed during deposition of upper Middle and Upper Pennsylvanian strata when the climate was generally more seasonal, and peat formation was confined to topogenous swamps during pluvial periods.” ↩ ↩

2. 41b.

   Page 161:  A later chapter in the same volume (outside pages 3–22, so not this paper) states the working assumption of.  “a coal to peat compaction ratio of 7 to 1 (averaged by Ryer and Langer, 1980)”.  against Thomas's 10:1 from the same paper.  Ryer and Langer (1980, J. Sediment. Petrol. 50:987) measured 11.3:1; the 7:1 is the median of their compilation of earlier estimates, so this chapter's attribution is to the compilation, not the measurement. ↩

Lesquereux, Leo.  “Description of the Coal Flora of the Carboniferous Formation in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.”  Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Report of Progress P 2.  1880.  A report from the Pennsylvania state geological survey that describes the fossil plants of the coal-age (Carboniferous) rocks of Pennsylvania and the rest of the United States.  On page 511 its author argues that Stigmaria, the fossil remains that fill the clay beneath coal seams, were true stems, not roots.  The article uses it because one sentence from that page is quoted as a problem for the rooted, in-place view, while the same page argues against that view.

1. 42a.

   Page 511:  “But how to explain the fact that beds of fireclay twenty to thirty feet in thickness are mostly composed of Stigmaria, or filled from the base to the top with remains of these plants, stems and leaves, without a fragment of Sigillaria ever found amongst them and without any coal above?  Roots cannot live independently of trunks or of aerial plants.” ↩

2. 42b.

   Page 511:  Lesquereux describes fireclay surfaces of "an acre or more" covered with Stigmaria stems.  “In my opinion they are true stems”.  “with their leaves still attached to them in their original disposition in right angle.  They have evidently the same position and distribution as during their growth”.  “This conformation shows that the stems of Stigmaria were floating or expanding at the surface of soft muddy flakes, and independent of the growth of trees.” ↩

DiMichele, William A., and Tom L. Phillips.  “Paleobotanical and paleoecological constraints on models of peat formation in the Late Carboniferous of Euramerica.”  Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 106:39–90.  1994.  A paper that uses fossil plants to set limits on models of how peat formed in the Late Carboniferous swamps of Euramerica (Europe and North America).  Its abstract says that lycopsid bark, from club-moss trees, is the main wood-like tissue in most coals, while tree ferns, seed ferns and lycopsid root systems were largely soft, non-woody tissue.  The article uses it because the authors expect different parts of the same plants to end up in different beds, and warn that peat repeatedly rotted and re-rooted would carry few whole plants.

1. 43a.

   “Structurally wood-like lycopsid bark is the major 'woody' tissue encountered in most Westphalian coals.  Tree ferns and pteridosperms were largely parenchymatous in construction;  the stigmarian root systems of lycopsids also were largely parenchymatous. ... peat repeatedly exposed to decay and rerooting by stigmarian root systems of lycopsids, would have a distinctly non-woody signature and yet would have formed in a forested environment.”  Trees, the abstract adds,  “contributed up to 95% of the peat biomass.” ↩

Calder, John H. et al.  “A fossil lycopsid forest succession in the classic Joggins section of Nova Scotia: paleoecology of a disturbance-prone Pennsylvanian wetland.”  Wetlands through Time (GSA Special Paper 399), 169–195.  Edited by S. F. Greb and W. A. DiMichele.  2006.  A 2006 paleoecology study of the fossil lycopsid (club-moss relative) forest in the classic Joggins section of Nova Scotia, by five authors.  The team's 1999 congress abstract put standing lycopsids "minimally at 50 horizons"; the 2006 count of "60 or more" is the same survey after more seasons of cliff retreat.  The article uses it as the fullest modern study of the Joggins trees.

1. 44a.

   Page 169:  Abstract:  “lycopsid trees occur at 60 or more horizons within the 1425-m-thick coal-bearing interval of the classic Carboniferous section at Joggins ... Erect lepidodendrid trees, invariably rooted within an organic-rich substrate, are best preserved when entombed by heterolithic sandstone/mudstone units on the order of 3-4 m thick, inferred to represent the recurring overtopping of distributary channels of similar thickness. ... This record, which is not significantly time averaged, closely parallels the megaspore rec[ord].” ↩

Calder, John H. et al.  “The Joggins Cliffs of Nova Scotia: Lyell & Co's "Coal Age Galapagos".”  Atlantic Geoscience Society Special Publication 28.  2005.  The Field Trip B2 guidebook for the joint geological meeting in Halifax in May 2005, written by three authors from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Dalhousie University.  It walks through the Joggins cliffs stop by stop.  The article uses it for the mechanism of burial: repeated sediment floods that entombed the standing trees.

1. 45a.

   Page 14:  “Especially prominent are sheet-like, heterolithic units of sandstone and mudstone, several meters thick, that extend across the cliffs and foreshore and contain many entombed erect trees ... Charles Lyell was struck by the preserved height of the trees, which he estimated to be up to 7.6 m tall (Lyell, 1842, 1843), although the maximum height observed over the past three decades has been 6 m.”  Page 15:  “These repeated sedimentation events entombed the standing trees and created scour hollows and vegetation shadows around the trunks.” ↩

DiMichele, William A., and Howard J. Falcon-Lang.  “Pennsylvanian 'fossil forests' in growth position (T0 assemblages): origin, taphonomic bias and palaeoecological insights.”  Journal of the Geological Society, London 168:585–605.  2011.  A review paper by William A. DiMichele and Howard J. Falcon-Lang on fossil forests buried standing in their growth position, which the authors call T0 assemblages.  It asks what makes such burials happen and how the record is biased, and it tabulates published examples.  The article uses it to show that the Joggins fossil forests are mostly in wetland rock, and that such forests are far more common in the Pennsylvanian rocks (318 to 299 million years old) than in any other period.

1. 46a.

   Page 591:  “at Joggins, Nova Scotia, 66 fossil forest horizons with lycopsid trees have been exposed in recent years (Davies et al. 2005).  Of these, 86% occur in wetland deposits even though wetland and dryland successions make up roughly equal stratal thickness in the formation.”  Page 586:  The Joggins rooted trees.  “convinced Lyell (1843) that coal was the product of a peaty soil.”  Figure 9, page 597:  “More than 13 lycopsid forests are stacked in a 25 m thick interval of the Sydney Mines Formation.” ↩

2. 46b.

   Table 1, pages 588–589:  “Selected examples of Carboniferous (primarily Pennsylvanian) and earliest Permian T0 assemblages”.  About 64 rows, spanning growth environments from peat swamp to dryland floodplain; a row is one published report and may cover many horizons.  Page 586:  “we are aware that we have missed many papers.”  Page 585:  The abstract says such forests.  “are far more abundant in Pennsylvanian successions than in any other part of the geological record.” ↩

Morris, John D.  “Polystrate trees and coal seams of Joggins fossil cliffs.”  ICR Impact (316).  1999.  Page ii:  Morris gives Dawson's count of coal horizons.  “some 85 coal horizons”.  A creationist article from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) about polystrate trees, meaning fossil trees that cross several layers of rock, at the Joggins fossil cliffs.  It argues that the roots show movement, not growth in place.  The article uses it because it is the creationist case against the rooting evidence at Joggins, set out in numbered points.

1. 47a.

   Page iii:  “Only a few of the trees arise from the organic coal layers ... roots seldom penetrate into it as they would if the tree grew in a peat bog”.  “Segments of roots are often found inside the once-hollow trunks, while other fossil roots are normally detached”.  “None of the tree root systems are complete;  all have been truncated”.  “The long axis of both the partial roots and the rootlets have a preferred orientation as would result from movement, not growth in place”.  Page ii:  “all that remains is a cylinder of coalified bark filled with sediments.” ↩

Gastaldo, Robert A.  “An explanation for lycopod configuration, 'Fossil Grove' Victoria Park, Glasgow.”  Scottish Journal of Geology 22(1):77–83.  1986.  A 1986 paper by Robert A. Gastaldo on the lycopod (club-moss relative) stumps of the Fossil Grove in Victoria Park, Glasgow.  It argues that the stumps were distorted in a NE–SW direction when sand flowed at high velocity into a partly decayed stand of trees.  The article uses it because Clarey and Tomkins (2016) drew their description of the Glasgow site from it.

1. 48a.

   Page 77:  Synopsis:  “Uniform distortion of the stumps in a NE–SW direction is believed to have resulted from the influx of the moulding sand at high velocity into a partially decayed stand of trees.  This is evidenced by the southwestward paleocurrent direction deduced from ripple marks and transported plant detritus in the uppermost horizons of the sand body.  Subsequent casting by continued influx of sand preserved the stand in its 'streamlined' configuration.  Regional tectonism is not considered responsible for the slightly elongated condition of the preserved 'Fossil Grove' as proposed by previous authors.” ↩

Taylor, Edith L. et al.  “The present is not the key to the past: a polar forest from the Permian of Antarctica.”  Science 257:1675–1677.  1992.  A short Science report on a fossil forest in the Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica, dated to the Upper Permian.  The authors describe 15 fossil tree trunks in the position they grew, rooted in shale with many Glossopteris leaves, a seed fern, and from the tree rings conclude that the forest grew fast and was young.  The article uses it for the in-place trunks, which it describes as a young, fast-growing forest.

1. 49a.

   “An in situ Upper Permian fossil forest in the central Transantarctic Mountains near the Beardmore Glacier includes 15 permineralized trunks in growth position;  the paleolatitude of the site was approximately 80° to 85° south.  Numerous leaves of the seed fern Glossopteris are present in the shale in which the trunks are rooted.”  “tree rings reveal that the forest was a rapidly growing and young forest.” ↩

Ryberg, Patricia E., and Edith L. Taylor.  “Silicified wood from the Permian and Triassic of Antarctica: tree rings from polar paleolatitudes.”  USGS Open-File Report 2007-1047, Short Research Paper 080.  2007.  A short U.S. Geological Survey paper on fossil wood from Antarctica, in which the authors count the growth rings of Permian and Triassic trees that grew at polar latitudes, about 80 to 85 degrees south in the Permian.  The authors suggest that the yearly cycle of light and dark inside the Antarctic Circle controlled how the rings were produced.  The article uses it for the 115-ring Permian wood, from the same Buckley Formation rock as the 1992 forest.

1. 50a.

   Page 2:  “Rings in the Permian glossopterid wood ranged from 0.20–9.9 mm wide (mean:  2.3 mm) (Table 1), with up to 115 rings, indicating that mature wood was used in measurements. ... Using Mork's (1928) method, the Permian woods contain only 1–5 cells of LW per ring.”  LW means latewood, the wood a tree lays down late in the growing season.  Table 1 lists eight Permian specimens, with a mean of 30 rings.  The wood is from the Upper Permian Buckley Formation, the coal-bearing unit that hosts the 1992 forest. ↩

Bohor, B. F., and D. M. Triplehorn.  “Tonsteins: Altered Volcanic-Ash Layers in Coal-Bearing Sequences.”  GSA Special Paper 285.  1993.  A monograph on tonsteins, the thin clay layers left when volcanic ash is altered in coal-bearing rock.  The article uses it for the field features that point to a tonstein having fallen out of the air as ash.

1. 51a.

   Leaf 11, p. 5 (the item's scan data gives page = leaf − 6, checked at leaves 9 and 50):  “One characteristic of tonsteins that suggests an air-fall origin is their field relations.  Tonstein layers are usually thin, continuous, widespread, and have sharp contacts with the enclosing beds.  All these features characterize a volcanic fallout deposit preserved in a low-energy environment.” ↩

Greb, Stephen F. et al.  “Depositional history of the Fire Clay coal bed (Late Duckmantian), eastern Kentucky, USA.”  International Journal of Coal Geology 40:255–280.  1999.  A 1999 study of the Fire Clay coal bed in eastern Kentucky, built on more than 3,800 coal thickness measurements, coal analyses from 97 localities, and more than 300 outcrops and cores.  It found that the ash layer within the coal fell into water on a flat surface that had been a swamp, and that the ash then ponded the water so that a second swamp grew on top.  The article uses it to show that even a swamp drowned under water when the ash fell was a quiet surface, and that the upper bench of peat that grew on the ash is still peat.

1. 52a.

   Section Abstract:  “More than 3800 coal thickness measurements, proximate analyses from 97 localities, and stratigraphic and sedimentological analyses from more than 300 outcrops and cores were used ... The drowned mire was covered by an air-fall volcanic-ash deposit, which produced the characteristic flint clay parting.  The extent and uniform thickness of the parting suggests that the ash layer was deposited in water on a relatively flat surface without a thick canopy or extensive standing vegetation across most of the study area.  Ash deposits led to regional ponding and establishment of a second planar mire.”  The upper bench shows a palynological.  “shift from planar to ombrotrophic mire phases.” ↩

Coffin, Harold G.  “The Yellowstone petrified "forests".”  Origins 24(1).  1997.  A special issue of Origins, the journal of the Geoscience Research Institute, in which Harold G. Coffin surveys the Yellowstone petrified forests, counting upright and prone trees at each site, and argues that both the soils and the trees were transported.  The article uses it as the creationists' flagship case for transported forests.  The mainstream papers in this exchange are Fritz 1980, Geology 8:309; Yuretich 1984, Geology 12:159; and Ammons et al. 1987, Palaeo3 60:97.

1. 53a.

   Page 9:  “For three levels of the Fossil Forest (Amethyst Mountain) with 208 petrified trees, only 28% are upright.  On the other hand, the Petrified Tree area near Roosevelt Lodge exhibits 30 upright out of a total of 40 visible petrified trees (75%).  Individual levels may be even more variable — some with all trees horizontal or all upright.”  Upright trees.  “range in height from just above ground level to over 6 m.”  Table 2 gives erect and prone counts by site: Specimen Creek 50/20, Mt. Hornaday 157/173, Fossil Forest 58/150, Specimen Ridge 57/26, Petrified Tree 30/10, Mt. Norris 29/31.  Page 13:  The ring cross-matching between levels rests on Michael Arct's Loma Linda theses. ↩ ↩

Austin, Steven A.  “Mount St. Helens and catastrophism.”  Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism 1:3–9.  1986.  A paper by Steven A. Austin, PhD, of the Institute for Creation Research, presented at the First International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh in August 1986.  It describes a sonar and scuba survey of the lake bottom in Spirit Lake, made with Harold Coffin, and argues that the Mount St. Helens deposits formed rapidly.  The article uses it for Austin's count of upright stumps on the lake floor, and for his claim that the Spirit Lake peat resembles bark-rich coal from the eastern United States.

1. 54a.

   Page 3:  “Hundreds of upright, fully submerged logs were located by sidescan sonar ... Extrapolating from the small area of lake floor surveyed to the entire lake bottom, we estimate more than 15,000 upright stumps existed on the floor of the lake in August 1985.  The average height of an upright deposited stump is 20 feet.”  “some are already solidly buried by sedimentation with more than three feet of sediment around their bases, while others have no sediment around their bases.  This proves that the upright trees were deposited at different times with their roots buried at different levels.” ↩

2. 54b.

   Page 3:  “a layer of peat several inches thick has accumulated ... The Spirit Lake peat resembles, both compositionally and texturally, certain coal beds of the eastern United States which also are dominated by tree bark ... Swamp peats, however, have only very rare bark sheet material because the intrusive action of three [tree] roots disintegrates and homogenizes the peat.”  The "bark-dominated eastern US coal" claim rests on Austin's unpublished 1979 Penn State dissertation and a 1980 GSA abstract. ↩

Orem, W. H. et al.  “Experimental early-stage coalification of a peat sample and a peatified wood sample from Indonesia.”  Organic Geochemistry 24:111–125.  1996.  A laboratory experiment that held a peat sample and a peatified wood sample from Indonesia at 125 °C under pressure for 75 days, letting by-products escape.  The article uses it, with Hayatsu's experiment, as lab evidence that coal chemistry can run in months at modest temperatures.

1. 55a.

   “The experiment (125°C, 408 atm lithostatic pressure, and 177 atm fluid pressure for 75 days) was designed to maintain both lithostatic and fluid pressure on the sample, but allow by-products that may retard coalification to escape. ... The elemental compositions and ¹³C NMR spectra of the experimentally coalified peat and wood were generally similar to those of Miocene coal and coalified wood samples from Indonesia.” ↩

Ryer, Thomas A., and Anna W. Langer.  “Thickness change involved in the peat-to-coal transformation for a bituminous coal of Cretaceous age in central Utah.”  Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 50(3):987–992.  1980.  A field study of a Cretaceous coal bed in central Utah.  The authors measured 28 sections across an Interstate 70 road cut, where a migrating channel had eroded a peat bed, and used a regression, a line of best fit, of channel-fill thickness against the coal that remained.  A textbook cites it for a 10-to-1 peat-to-coal ratio, and the article uses this paper to test that figure.

1. 56a.

   Page 989:  “the channel sandstone unit increases by 2.1 meters for each meter of decrease in the thickness of the claystone and by 11.3 meters for each meter of coal.  Assuming that there was no compaction involved in the transition from sand to sandstone, the following compaction ratios are established:  clay:claystone = 2.1:1;  peat:coal = 11.3:1.”  Page 991:  “As there is no evidence of compaction in the sandstone that directly overlies the coal, the peat:coal thickness ratio of 11.3:1 is considered accurate.” ↩

2. 56b.

   Pages 987–988:  “The peat:coal thickness ratios presented in Table 1 range from 1.4:1 to 30:1.  The median ratio is 7:1.”  Table 1 itself includes one 10:1 entry among the earlier estimates; the commonly used 10:1 is otherwise the field's round number.  Nadon 1998, page 727, writes:  “an order of magnitude estimate of 10:1 is commonly used (Johnson, 1984;  McCabe, 1984;  Collinson and Scott, 1987).” ↩

3. 56c.

   Page 991:  “The 11.3 value is applicable to uncompacted to moderately well-compacted peat inasmuch as the original layer of peat plus overlying mud totalled only about 10 meters in thickness at the time it was eroded”.  “For restorations showing Cretaceous peat beds of much greater thickness or peat beds buried beneath additional layers of sediment (i.e., in instances where compaction of the original peat would be greater), a smaller compaction factor must be used.” ↩

Widera, Marek.  “Compaction of lignite: a review of methods and results.”  Acta Geologica Polonica 65(3):367–378.  2015.  A 2015 review by Marek Widera of the Institute of Geology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, of the methods geologists use to measure how much a peat bed shrinks as it becomes lignite and then coal.  It compiles published peat-to-coal ratios from 1.1:1 to 60:1 and concludes that the most accurate peat-to-lignite ratio is 2:1 to 4:1.  The article uses it to show how widely the published ratios scatter.

1. 57a.

   Page 367:  Abstract:  “The published peat:coal compaction ratios range from 1.1:1 to 60:1 and from 1.1:1 to 11:1 for lignites”.  “the most accurate peat:lignite compaction ratio ranges from 2:1 to 4:1.”  Page 373:  “the compaction ratios calculated for bituminous coals of Pennsylvanian age range from 3:1 to 20:1 ... The average value, for example, for coal balls from the Illinois Basin (USA) and the Donets Basin (Ukraine) is 5:1”.  Winston's tissue method gives.  “3:1 to 60:1”.  Powder River Wyodak:  “from 1.7:1 to 31:1, averaging 7.1:1 (White 1986).” ↩

Rogner, Hans-Holger.  “An assessment of world hydrocarbon resources.”  Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 22:217–262.  1997.  A review of the world's hydrocarbon resources, the fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas, with figures in gigatonnes of oil equivalent (Gtoe).  Its abstract argues that estimates based only on reserves, the amounts that can be exploited with current technology and market conditions, seriously underestimate long-term availability.  The article uses it for the world coal totals at three levels: reserves, resource base and all occurrences.

1. 58a.

   Page 245:  “Estimates of proved recoverable reserves of coal have hovered just above the 1000 Gt mark ever since the first worldwide inventory of world coal resources was presented at the International Geological Congress held in Toronto in 1913. ... Coal resources have generally been estimated to exceed reserves by one order of magnitude.”  Table 9, page 249:  In gigatonnes of oil equivalent: coal reserves 1,003; resources 2,397; resource base 3,400; additional occurrences 2,846.  Table 8, page 248:  world total 6,246 Gtoe. ↩

Computed for this article.  1 toe = 41.868 GJ;  IPCC 2006 default carbon content of coal about 26 tC/TJ;  so 1 Gtoe of coal ≈ 1.09 GtC.  Rogner's 1,003 / 3,400 / 6,246 Gtoe become about 1,090 / 3,700 / 6,800 GtC.  Divisors:  450 GtC of living plants (Bar-On et al. 2018) and 56.4 GtC/yr of land net primary production (Field et al. 1998).  With a round 50% retention of plant carbon into coal (Large et al. 2021 place peat at 60–70% mass loss from vegetation), the resource base represents about 7,400 GtC of original plant carbon, 16 times today's plants or 130 years of today's land growth. ↩

Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR).  BGR Energy Study 2023: Data and Developments Concerning German and Global Energy Supplies.  May 2025.  A study of German and world energy supplies by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, with data as at the end of 2023.  It gives hard coal reserves of 797 gigatonnes (Gt, billions of tonnes) and resources of 16,199 Gt, and brown coal reserves of 321 Gt and resources of 3,515 Gt; in carbon, at IPCC default contents, reserves are about 640 GtC and resources about 12,000 GtC.  The article uses it for its estimate of total coal resources, near 19,700 gigatonnes. ↩

Bar-On, Yinon M. et al.  “The biomass distribution on Earth.”  PNAS 115(25):6506–6511.  2018.  “The sum of the biomass across all taxa on Earth is ≈550 Gt C, of which ≈80% (≈450 Gt C; SI Appendix, Table S2) are plants.”  A 2018 census of the biomass of all kingdoms of life, by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the California Institute of Technology, who say no global count of the biomass of each group existed before.  They find about 550 gigatonnes of carbon in living things, about 80% of it in plants (about 450 Gt C, mostly land plants) and about 70 Gt C in bacteria.  The article uses the 450 gigatonnes held by living plants today as the comparison for its coal figures. ↩

Field, Christopher B. et al.  “Primary production of the biosphere: integrating terrestrial and oceanic components.”  Science 281:237–240.  1998.  A short Science report that combines computer models of photosynthesis on land and in the ocean, fed by satellite measurements, to estimate net primary production (NPP): the carbon that plants and algae fix each year after their own respiration.  It finds 104.9 petagrams of carbon a year, with roughly equal shares from land and ocean.  The article uses its land figure of 56.4 petagrams of carbon a year as the yearly rate at which land plants fix carbon.

1. 62a.

   Page 238:  “NPP of 104.9 Pg of C (Table 1), with similar contributions from the terrestrial [56.4 Pg of C (53.8%)] and oceanic [48.5 Pg of C (46.2%)] components.” ↩

Keith, Heather et al.  “Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world's most carbon-dense forests.”  PNAS 106(28):11635–11640.  2009.  A 2009 paper that re-examines published carbon measurements from 136 primary forest sites (forests that have not been cleared or cut by people) around the world.  It found the highest known carbon density, 1,867 tonnes of carbon per hectare for living plus dead wood, averaged over 13 sites in Australian Eucalyptus regnans forests, and 2,844 tonnes at the densest single site, in stands whose oldest trees are about 250 years old or more.  The article uses it as the highest known forest, to test whether all of the coal carbon could have been living forest on the day the Flood began.

1. 63a.

   Page 11635:  “the world's highest known total biomass carbon density (living plus dead) of 1,867 tonnes carbon per ha (average value from 13 sites) occurs in Australian temperate moist Eucalyptus regnans forests.”  In the body of the paper:  “maximum biomass carbon density for a E. regnans-dominated site was 1,819 tC·ha⁻¹ in living above-ground biomass and 2,844 tC·ha⁻¹ in total biomass”. ↩

Large, David J. et al.  “Time, hydrologic landscape, and the long-term storage of peatland carbon in sedimentary basins.”  Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 126:e2020JF005762.  2021.  A 2021 paper led by David Large of the University of Nottingham, which argues that the time needed to store the carbon in a coal seam is 100,000 to 1,000,000 years, about ten times the old assumption.  It says peat can build up over such spans only where the land stays wet and sinks slowly.  The method, which times a coal seam by its carbon, comes from Large and Marshall's 2015 paper, which is the primary source for it, and the article uses this 2021 paper for the switch to that method and for its claim that coal seams took far longer to form.

1. 64a.

   Page 3:  “the duration of coal seams is about an order of magnitude greater than previously considered for example, 1 m of bituminous coal formed under temperate paleo-climatic conditions at a carbon accumulation rate of 20 g/m2/yr would represent 100 kyr rather than the typically assumed 10 kyr (e.g., C. Diessel et al., 2000;  Jerrett, Davies, et al., 2011)”.  “thick coal seams (1– >20 m) can be of sufficient duration to span, without hiatus, periods of 0.1- >1 Myr and may account for more time than inter-seam clastic sediments (Large & Marshall, 2015).” ↩

2. 64b.

   Page 10:  “when our estimates of time in coal are applied to the Duckmantian-Langsettian interval of the Carboniferous, the time accounted for in the clastic sediments and coal increases from 75 to 125 kyr (Scott and Stephens, 2015) to 0.7–1.5 Myr (Large & Marshall, 2015).  The former value requires huge unsubstantiated hiatuses whilst the latter does not and still lies within chronostratigraphic estimates for the duration of the interval.” ↩

3. 64c.

   Figure 1, page 3:  “Positions of average swamp and bog are shown after 60% and 70% loss of mass”.  The figure caption says the loss is from vegetation, with further loss from peat to coal. ↩

Woodmorappe, John.  “The antediluvian biosphere and its capability of supplying the entire fossil record.”  Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism 2:205–218.  1986.  A creationist paper by John Woodmorappe, M.S., in the conference's technical symposium sessions.  It asks whether the living matter of the 1656 years before the Flood could have supplied the coal, oil and other deposits of the fossil record.  The paper's references run to p. 213, and the printed Discussion (p. 214) and the author's Closure (pp. 214–218) follow it.  The article uses it as the published creationist answer on coal, and audits its arithmetic.

1. 65a.

   Page 206:  “If, to start our calculations, we use the previously-discussed value of 1.16x10⁵ gms carbon per cu. meter peat and have the entire earth covered with 20m of it, 1.18x10²¹ gms carbon is available.  Using Morton's (2) quoted value of 1.5x10¹⁹ gms carbon in all the world's coal, 1.27% of the earth's surface having 20m thick peat deposits is all that is necessary to supply the carbon.”  “Consider Morton's (2) quoted value of 2.01x10²⁰ gms carbon stored therein [oil].  Using the same 20m thickness of peat, 17% of the earth's area supplies global oil deposits ... Bolin (9) proposed that only 5x10¹⁸ gms carbon is, as a lower value, found in the world's oil, coal, and gas put together.”  “The present ocean floor contains 2x10²² gms carbon (10).  If any combination of the carbon in the antediluvian oceans and that mobilized during the Flood totalled only 1% of the present oceanic amount, the high value (2) for global oil would be immediately satisfied.” ↩

2. 65b.

   Page 205:  “In 1656 years, peat deposits of 11.6 m depth result from the highest bog-plant productivities seen today (1,400 gms per sq. meter per year (7)), assuming no decay and peat density of .2 (6).”  The next sentence:  “Probably much higher productivities occurred in the antediluvian biosphere than even these maximal values because of favorable conditions.” ↩

3. 65c.

   Page 214:  Printed Discussion, a comment by Glenn R. Morton, a critic of the paper:  “It seems that only the very fastest rates observed today and only the very lowest estimates of carbon content are used for Mr. Woodmorappe's calculations.  This is close to special pleading.  For instance, Bolin's estimate of carbon in petroleum, coal, and gas is used.  Mr. Woodmorappe is uncertain as to whether Bolin's estimate includes disseminated occurrences, but he goes ahead and assumes that it does.”  Woodmorappe's Closure (p. 215) answers him by name:  Page 215:  “It is pointless to quibble about something on vague theoretical grounds when one can observe the requisite phytomass densities and can observe the requisite peat accumulation rates.” ↩

Walker, Simon.  “Major Coalfields of the World.”  IEA Coal Research report CCC/32.  2nd edition.  2000.  A survey of the world's principal coalfields, published by IEA Coal Research.  It reviews each field's geology, industry, production costs and future potential over about 20 years, and it opens with how coal and lignite (brown coal) formed at different stages of geological history.  The article uses it to show that coal is not only a Carboniferous fuel, since the survey names three main periods of coal formation.

1. 66a.

   Page 10:  “Major coal deposits formed in virtually every geological period since the Upper Carboniferous ... Today post-Carboniferous coals, found mainly in the southern hemisphere and in western North America, constitute a significant proportion of world output”.  “There have been three main periods during geological history when these conditions existed;  during the Carboniferous, Permian and Jurassic-Tertiary periods.” ↩

Luppens, James A. et al.  “Assessment of Coal Geology, Resources, and Reserves in the Gillette Coalfield, Powder River Basin, Wyoming.”  USGS Open-File Report 2008-1202.  2008.  A U.S. Geological Survey report on the coal of the Gillette coalfield in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, which the report calls the most prolific coalfield in the United States.  It assesses eleven coal beds for their in-place coal, and six of them for the coal that could be mined under current technology and economics.  The article uses it for the size of that one coalfield.

1. 67a.

   Page 1:  “The total original coal resource in the Gillette coalfield for all eleven coal beds assessed, and no restrictions applied, was calculated to be 201 billion short tons.”  201 billion short tons = 182 Gt; at 0.50 tC per tonne of sub-bituminous coal (IPCC 2006), about 91 GtC. ↩

Clarey, Tim et al.  “Globally extensive Cenozoic coals indicate high post-Flood boundary.”  Journal of Creation 35(1).  2021.  A creationist journal article arguing that the globally widespread Cenozoic coals, from the younger part of the rock record, show that the boundary between Flood and post-Flood rock lies high in the rock record.  The article uses it for the Chinese seams, which add to its Victorian examples.

1. 68a.

   “the Miocene brown coals of the onshore Latrobe Valley are up to 200 m thick”.  “A single Paleogene coal seam in the Fushun Basin was found to be 70 m thick.  The Xianfeng, Xiaolongtan, and Zhaotong Basins of southeastern China contain Neogene coal beds that attain thicknesses of 237 m, 223 m and 140 m, respectively.” ↩

Whitmore, John H., and Paul Garner.  “Using suites of criteria to recognize pre-Flood, Flood, and post-Flood strata in the rock record with application to Wyoming (USA).”  Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, 425–448.  2008.  A paper by two creationists, John Whitmore of Cedarville University and Paul Garner of Biblical Creation Ministries, who take a literal approach to Scripture and a young earth of about 6,000 years.  It proposes sorting rock layers into pre-Flood, Flood and post-Flood strata by a set of criteria, such as coal deposits, rather than by radioisotope dates or zone fossils, and applies the method to the rocks of Wyoming.  The article uses it for the authors' placing of the Flood boundary in the Lance or Fort Union Formation, the formation that holds the Wyodak-Anderson coal zone.

1. 69a.

   “Coal deposits (rank = 3) ... After the Flood there would have been additional opportunities for coal formation, associated with the burial of vegetation rafts left over from the Flood and the burial of new-growth vegetation, but with declining frequency and geographical extent over time.”  “From our preliminary data, we would place the Flood/post-Flood boundary somewhere in the Lance or Fort Union Formation.”  The Wyodak-Anderson zone is in the Fort Union Formation (Flores 2004, PS-9, PS-22). ↩

Clarey, Timothy L., and Davis J. Werner.  “A progressive global Flood model confirmed by rock data across five continents.”  Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Creationism, 413–443.  2023.  A paper by two researchers at the Institute for Creation Research, based on nearly 3,000 stratigraphic columns (records of rock layers) from five continents, drawn from oil wells, measured sections and seismic data.  It divides the fossil-bearing rock record into six packages of sediment and proposes that the Flood rose in stages, peaking on Day 150, with the post-Flood boundary high in the Cenozoic.  The article uses it for the claim that the thickest coal seams were laid down by the Flood, including offshore coals 280 km off Borneo.

1. 70a.

   Page 435:  “Third, the thickest and most extensive coal seams are found globally in Tejas sediments.  The Powder River Basin (PRB), USA coals, which are all within Paleogene system rock layers, contain the largest reserves of low-sulfur subbituminous coal in the world ... These coal beds were derived from huge mats of plant and tree debris, primarily composed of angiosperms that likely lived at higher pre-Flood elevations. ... Deep-water coals in the North Luconia region of the South China Sea, about 280 km off of Borneo, were found in a 1.5 km-thick section of Oligocene (Upper Paleogene) strata, over 3 km below sea level and in 1000 meters of water (Lunt 2019).  Where did these coals originate?  It is likely vast forests on the pre-Flood uplands were ripped from the land as the floodwaters crested on Day 150. ... Local catastrophes have great difficulty explaining the massive extent, distance from shore, and depth and thicknesses of these offshore coals.”  Page 433:  “The thickest and most extensive coal seams in the world were created at this time in the Flood.” ↩ ↩

Large, D. J., and C. Marshall.  “Use of carbon accumulation rates to estimate the duration of coal seams and the influence of atmospheric dust deposition on coal composition.”  Geological Society, London, Special Publications 404:303–315.  2015.  A research paper in a Geological Society of London special volume, by D. J. Large and C. Marshall.  It proposes estimating how long a coal seam took to form from long-term carbon build-up rates in modern peat (the Holocene, the most recent geological epoch), adjusted for carbon lost as peat became coal.  The article uses it as the newer method that replaced the old estimate from seam thickness.

1. 71a.

   Section Abstract:  “Time contained within coal seams is most commonly estimated using a volumetric approach that fails to take into account processes of carbon accumulation and loss during peat formation and coalification.  A more appropriate approach for estimating the time contained within a coal seam is to use Holocene long-term carbon accumulation rates, accounting for carbon loss during coalification.” ↩

Schmitz, Mark D., and Vladimir I. Davydov.  “Quantitative radiometric and biostratigraphic calibration of the Pennsylvanian–Early Permian (Cisuralian) time scale and pan-Euramerican chronostratigraphic correlation.”  GSA Bulletin 124:549–577.  2012.  A research paper in the GSA Bulletin by Mark D. Schmitz and Vladimir I. Davydov.  It sets the time scale for the Pennsylvanian and Early Permian periods by combining radiometric ages from volcanic ash beds with fossil-based correlation and the tuning of rock cycles to a known orbital cycle.  The article uses it for the dates that frame the Pennsylvanian coal cycles.

1. 72a.

   Section Abstract:  “Twenty-four ash-bed ages in three outer ramp and basinal sections of the Pre-Uralian foredeep bracket the biotic definitions of global stages ... four additional ash-bed ages in two sections of the eastern slope of the Urals constrain the global Bashkirian and Serpukhovian Stages ... a high-resolution (∼0.1-Ma) global chronostratigraphic standard ... We integrate radiometric ages, biostratigraphic correlation, and cyclostratigraphic tuning of major cyclothems to the long-period (404-ka) eccentricity cycle.” ↩