This page exists so that nobody has to take the rest of the article on trust. Every source it rests on is listed here with what it actually says, how it was obtained, and which way it cuts.
The article's working notes, with verbatim quotations, access routes and page anchors for every entry below, are in three research dossiers beside it: research/formation.md, research/in-situ-vs-transported.md and research/budget-and-age-distribution.md. A fourth, research/gap-closure.md, records the attempt to obtain the sources listed at the bottom of this page. This page is the index to them.
How to read an entry
Direction is judged relative to the young-earth claim that the world's coal seams are vegetation torn up and buried during the one-year Flood: supports, undercuts, mixed or background. It is assigned by what the source shows, not by who wrote it. Several creationist sources below are tagged undercuts because their own data or concessions cut against the claim, and one mainstream review is tagged mixed because it concedes the creationist premise about ordinary swamps.
Camp is disclosure: mainstream, creationist, or unaffiliated.
Type says whether the source measured something, modelled it, or reviewed others' work. A radiocarbon-dated peat core is a measurement. A compaction ratio is a model output. A textbook statement is a review.
Access says how the bytes were obtained. Several sources were read through archive.org's search-inside route on print-disabled items and are not stored in the library; the footnotes say so.
Rows not cited in the article were read and considered; where a row's source is not footnoted in index.md, it was judged background or duplicative and not used, and it is listed here so that the omission is visible.
Peat, mires and coal formation
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Darwin 1845, Journal of Researches, p. 287 | field note | unaffiliated | public domain (Darwin Online, Gutenberg) | undercuts creationist use | Peat is abundant in the Southern Cone and absent at Chiloé and La Plata. Says nothing about the tropics. |
| Supardi, Subekty & Neuzil 1993, GSA SP 286:45–61 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | undercuts | Riau peat 48,000 km²; 10 m in 4,470 yr; 4–5 mm/yr early, 1–2 mm/yr later. |
| Neuzil et al. 1993, GSA SP 286:23–44 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | undercuts | Ninety-three samples from three Indonesian domes: 1.1% ash, 0.14% sulfur. |
| Cecil et al. 1993, GSA SP 286:3–22 | review | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | undercuts, with a concession | Lower and lower Middle Pennsylvanian coals match the Indonesian domes; later Pennsylvanian coals do not. |
| Dommain, Couwenberg & Joosten 2011, QSR 30:999 | measurement | mainstream | Greifswald dissertation reprint | undercuts | Thirty-one dated cores: Holocene means 0.54–1.89 mm/yr; maximum 4.5 mm/yr for ~700 yr. |
| Dommain et al. 2010, Mires and Peat 6:05 | review | mainstream | open access | background | Domed peat covers <1% of the humid tropics; predicted Congo domes, confirmed 2017. |
| Dargie et al. 2017, Nature 542:86 | measurement | mainstream | White Rose accepted manuscript | undercuts | Congo peatland 145,500 km²; max 5.9 m; 0.21 mm/yr; Holocene. |
| Kremenetski et al. 2003, QSR 22:703 | compilation | mainstream | author copy | undercuts | West Siberian Lowland >900,000 km² of peatland, mean 2.56 m. |
| McCabe 1984, IAS Spec. Publ. 7:13 | review | mainstream | summary only | mixed | Ordinary swamps make dirty peat; raised or floating mires make clean peat. |
| Cecil 1990, Geology 18:533 | model | mainstream | abstract only | background | Ever-wet climate starves rivers of sediment, so peat stays clean. |
| Cameron, Esterle & Palmer 1989, IJCG 12:105 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | background | Most studied peats are domed; domes as models for coal. |
| Thomas 2013, Coal Geology, 2nd ed. | textbook | mainstream | archive.org open OCR | undercuts creationist use | The "no one model" sentence on p. 3 in context; 10:1 compaction and 5–10 kyr/m on p. 13; 100–150 °C for bituminous rank on p. 110. |
| DiMichele & Phillips 1994, Palaeo3 106:39 | review | mainstream | abstract only | background | Coal-swamp trees were mostly parenchyma; re-rooting separates plant parts. |
| Greb, Eble & Hower 1999, IJCG 40:255 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | undercuts, with a concession | Fire Clay: 3,800 thickness points; ash fell on a drowned mire; upper bench domed. |
Seam extent, thickness and the ash beds
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tewalt et al. 2001, USGS PP 1625-C | resource model | mainstream | public domain PDF | background | Pittsburgh bed >5,000 mi²; horizon 11,000 mi²; 6–8 ft where thick. |
| USGS Fact Sheet 004-02 | summary | mainstream | public domain | background | Fire Clay zone ~5,500 mi²; Pittsburgh 9.02% ash, Fire Clay 10.62%. |
| Outerbridge 2003, USGS OFR 03-351 | measurement | mainstream | public domain PDF | undercuts | Fire Clay tonstein 37,000 km², 3.7 km³ preserved, 6:1 ash compaction. |
| Lyons et al. 1992, GSA Bull. 104:1515 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | undercuts | Tonstein mineralogy, graded cycles, no detrital quartz, 312 ± 1 Ma. |
| Bohor & Triplehorn 1993, GSA SP 285 | review | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search; leaf offset not pinned | background | Tonsteins are thin, continuous, sharp-contacted fallout in low-energy settings. |
| Schmitz & Davydov 2012, GSA Bull. 124:549 | measurement + model | mainstream | abstract only | undercuts via brackets | Twenty-eight ash-bed ages; cyclothems tuned to 404 kyr inside a 0.1 Myr framework. |
| Flores 2004, USGS PP 1625-A ch. PS | measurement | mainstream | public domain PDF | undercuts K-Pg school | Big George 46–202 ft over 950 mi²; zone to 550 ft; Sumatran dome drawn as analogue; thick-coal origin "controversial." |
| Luppens et al. 2008, USGS OFR 2008-1202 | measurement | mainstream | public domain PDF | undercuts K-Pg school | Gillette coalfield 201 billion short tons original resource. |
| Bioregional Assessments, Gippsland brown coal | government summary | mainstream | open web | undercuts K-Pg school | Yallourn ~100 m; Morwell 1 to 165 m; Loy Yang composite 230 m. |
| Nadon 1998, Geology 26:727 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org microfilm search-inside (not stored) | mixed | Burial compaction "minimal"; 1.2:1 to 2.2:1 "more realistic"; 10:1 levees "run uphill"; no global decompaction value. |
| Ryer & Langer 1980, JSP 50:987 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org microfilm search-inside (not stored) | background | Measured 11.3:1 ("considered accurate") for near-surface peat; 7:1 is its Table 1 median of earlier estimates, one of which is 10:1; the text never adopts 10:1. Thomas's 10:1 and SP 286's 7:1 both cite the compilation, not the measurement. |
| Large et al. 2021, JGR Earth Surface 126 | model | mainstream | open access | undercuts | 1 m bituminous ≈ 100 kyr; thick seams 0.1–1 Myr; Duckmantian–Langsettian 0.7–1.5 Myr. |
| Large & Marshall 2015, GSL SP 404:303 | model | mainstream | abstract only | undercuts | The volumetric approach "fails to take into account processes of carbon accumulation and loss"; the carbon-accumulation method for seam duration. |
Coalification chemistry
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hayatsu et al. 1984, Org. Geochem. 6:463 | laboratory measurement | mainstream | abstract only | supports (chemistry only) | Lignin + clay at 150 °C for 2–8 months resembles low-rank coal. |
| Orem et al. 1996, Org. Geochem. 24:111 | laboratory measurement | mainstream | abstract only | supports (chemistry only) | Peat at 125 °C for 75 days resembles Miocene coal. |
| Barker & Pawlewicz 1986 | regression | mainstream | abstract only; coefficient scraped wrongly | mixed | Reflectance tracks peak temperature, calibrated on basins held 10⁵–10⁷ yr. |
| Burnham & Sweeney 1989, GCA 53:2649; Sweeney & Burnham 1990 | kinetic model | mainstream | abstract only; EASY%Ro table not obtained | mixed | Arrhenius kinetics for vitrinite; the article prints no temperatures from the unverified solver. |
The rooted forests and the transport question
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dawson 1868, Acadian Geology, 2nd ed. | field log | unaffiliated (19th c.) | public domain, archive.org | undercuts | Underclays under nearly every Joggins coal; trees "rooted in the roof of this coal"; thirteen forest surfaces in two subdivisions. |
| Davies et al. 2005, Atlantic Geology 41:115 | measurement | mainstream | open access | undercuts | Forty-five coal groups, 11.5 m coal, 915.5 m strata, 14 cycles. |
| Grey & Finkel 2011, Atlantic Geology 47:185 | review | mainstream | open access | background | Joggins forests "preserved in situ" with tree-hollow fauna. |
| Lesquereux 1880, Coal Flora of Pennsylvania, p. 511 | field observation | unaffiliated (19th c.) | public domain, archive.org | undercuts creationist use | The fireclay Stigmaria quotation, and on the same page the statement that they lie as they grew. |
| Hetherington, Berry & Dolan 2016, PNAS 113:6695 | measurement | mainstream | open access (Europe PMC) | undercuts | 25,600 root-haired rootlets per metre; branching in coal-ball peat in situ. |
| Zatoń, Mundy & Vinn 2020, J. Paleont. 94:1051 | review statement | mainstream | open access (Cambridge, CC-BY) | undercuts | Carboniferous "Spirorbis" are microconchids, marine to freshwater. |
| Taylor, Taylor & Cúneo 1992, Science 257:1675 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only (OSTI) | undercuts | Fifteen permineralised Permian trunks in growth position at 80–85° S. |
| Taylor & Ryberg 2007, USGS OFR 2007-1047 | measurement | mainstream | public domain PDF | undercuts | Permian glossopterid wood with up to 115 rings, 1–5 latewood cells. |
| Ager 1993, The New Catastrophism, p. 49 | argument | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | undercuts creationist use | The 100,000-year calculation, followed by "equally ridiculous" and "long breaks in sedimentation." |
| Ager 1981, Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, p. 42 | argument | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | background | The 38-foot Lancashire tree; the calculation is not in this edition. |
| Coffin 1983, Origins 10:9 | field observation | creationist | open web | supports (narrowly) | Spirit Lake: nearly all erect floating stumps had root balls; some grounded upright. |
| Austin 1986, ICC 1:3 | field observation + extrapolation | creationist | on disk | mixed | Sonar extrapolation to 15,000 upright stumps; bark peat "several inches thick." |
| Coffin 1997, Origins 24 | field census | creationist | open PDF | mixed | Amethyst Mountain 28% upright, Roosevelt Lodge 75%; ring matching from a thesis. |
| Fritz 1980, Yuretich 1984, Ammons et al. 1987 (Yellowstone) | measurement | mainstream | abstracts only | background | Fritz: "some logs and stumps" transported; Yuretich: "most upright tree stumps at Specimen Ridge ... were buried in place"; percentages in unread bodies. |
| Greb et al. 2003, GSA SP 370:127 | measurement + review | mainstream | Wayback capture of the Smithsonian bitstream | mixed; a real concession | Colchester >100,000 km², Springfield 73,500–81,000, Herrin 73,900; only boreal Sphagnum bogs match in extent; decompacted 30–40 m at an assumed 10:1; cites Austin 1979. |
| Calder et al. 2006, GSA SP 399:169 | measurement | mainstream | long abstract only (body paywalled; GSW, RG, OA indexes, Wayback all tried) | undercuts | "60 or more horizons"; trees "invariably rooted within an organic-rich substrate"; "not significantly time averaged." |
| Calder, Gibling & Rygel 2005, AGS SP 28 guidebook | review | mainstream | open PDF (Dalhousie repository) | undercuts | Body-level burial mechanism: crevasse-splay/bay-fill sheets "several meters thick" that "entombed the standing trees"; trees to 6 m preserved height. |
| Calder et al. 1999, ICCP XIV abstract (NS Report of Activities 1999, p. 199) | abstract | mainstream | open (archive.org full text) | undercuts | "minimally at 50 horizons"; ~5 m heterolithic units; "Sudden burial ... resulted in the demise of entire stands." |
| Cleal & Thomas 1995, GCR Palaeozoic Palaeobotany, pp. 188–191 | review | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search-inside (not stored) | undercuts | Fossil Grove stumps rooted in a silty mudstone Gastaldo "interpreted as a palaeosol"; distortion is "streamlining" by entombing sediment, not tectonics. |
| DiMichele & Falcon-Lang 2011, J. Geol. Soc. 168:585 | review | mainstream | Wayback capture of the Smithsonian bitstream | undercuts | 66 Joggins forest horizons, 86% wetland; ~64 published in-place Pennsylvanian forests, "missed many." |
| Widera 2015, Acta Geol. Polon. 65:367 | compilation | mainstream | open PDF | mixed | Compaction ratios 1.1:1 to 60:1; Pennsylvanian 3:1–20:1, coal-ball average 5:1; lignite 2:1–4:1. |
| Gastaldo 1984, PS Spec. Publ. 1:97; Gastaldo 1999, PS Papers 5:135; Gastaldo 1986, Scott. J. Geol. 22:77 | review; measurement | mainstream | abstracts / synopsis only | undercuts | Four reasons against floating mats (1984); Fossil Grove in situ with current-moulded stumps (1986). |
The creationist literature
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scheven 1996, CEN Tech. J. 10:70 | model | creationist | open PDF (creation.com) | supports | Origin of the floating-forest model. |
| Wise 2003, ICC 5:371 | model | creationist | Wayback capture via browser | supports | "perhaps subcontinent to continent-sized" floating biome proposed to explain fossil order; one sentence on roots ("do not seem as if"). |
| Austin & Sanders 2018, ICC 8:277 | history | creationist | on disk | supports | Austin's 1979 "floating mat model"; Clarey described as an advocate of it. |
| Sanders & Austin 2018, ICC 8:525 | paleobotany argument | creationist | on disk | supports; undercut by Hetherington | Rhizomorphs "not suited" to soil; rootlets renamed "water leaves." |
| Clarey 2015, JoC 29(3):50 | model critique | creationist | open PDF | mixed | Rejects the floating biome; forests grew on land, then were torn loose. |
| Clarey & Tomkins 2016, CRSQ 53(2):110 | site reinterpretation | creationist | CRS signed download link | undercuts (concedes Fossil Grove) | Ten rooted stumps, roots penetrating the mudstone, "best preserved ... in situ lycopod forest." |
| Clarey 2017, JoC 31(3):12 | argument | creationist | open PDF | undercuts | Biggest coals are Cenozoic and lycopod-free; the floating forest fails on tonnage. |
| Wise 2018, ARJ 11:237 | reply | creationist | open PDF | supports by criterion 5 | Fossil Grove floated in because Flood rock lies beneath; site examined briefly in poor light. |
| Johns 2019, ARJ 12:179 | review | creationist | open PDF | mixed | Criterion 5 "the most problematic"; Hindostan Whetstone beds probably in place. |
| Woolley 2010, 2011a, 2011b, JoC 24(3), 25(1), 25(3) | history + argument | creationist | open PDFs | supports | The seven problems; Darwin, Lesquereux and Spirorbis as used. |
| Oard 2024, Creation magazine | popular | creationist | open web | supports; numbers do not survive | 15 m peat, 10:1, 38,000 km² Kentucky No. 12 (from Austin's thesis), "eight to ten times more plants" (from Archer, misattributed). |
| Morris 1999, ICR Impact 316 | popular | creationist | open web | background | Joggins: does not dispute rooting; argues the trees are hollow. |
| Snelling 2009, Earth's Catastrophic Past vol. 2 | book | creationist | on disk | undercuts "all coal" | "More than 70 percent" of coal is Flood on a K-Pg boundary; Tertiary basins "local." |
| Whitmore & Garner 2008, ICC 6:425 | criteria | creationist | on disk | undercuts on their own boundary | Boundary in the Lance or Fort Union Formation, which holds Big George. |
| Clarey, Werner & Tomkins 2021, JoC 35(1) | argument | creationist | open web | undercuts K-Pg school | Cenozoic coals worldwide; Latrobe to 200 m; Chinese Neogene seams to 237 m. |
| Clarey & Werner 2023, ICC 9:413 | model | creationist | on disk | undercuts K-Pg school | "The thickest and most extensive coal seams are found globally in Tejas sediments." |
The carbon inventory and the biosphere ceiling
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rogner 1997, Annu. Rev. Energy Environ. 22:217 | resource assessment | mainstream | IIASA reprint | background | Coal reserves 1,003 Gtoe; resource base 3,400; all occurrences 6,246. |
| Archer 2010, The Global Carbon Cycle | textbook | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | undercuts creationist use | 500 GtC living land carbon; 5,000 GtC coal; nothing about a pre-Flood world. |
| BGR Energy Study 2023 | resource assessment | mainstream | second hand (Leipzig page) | background | Coal resources ~19,700 Gt; reserves 1,118 Gt. |
| IPCC 2006 Guidelines vol. 2 ch. 1 | default factors | mainstream | open PDF | background | Carbon per tonne by rank: 0.72, 0.67, 0.50, 0.33. |
| Bar-On, Phillips & Milo 2018, PNAS 115:6506 | census | mainstream | on disk | background | 450 GtC of plants. |
| Field et al. 1998, Science 281:237 | model | mainstream | eScholarship copy | background | Land NPP 56.4 GtC/yr. |
| Keith, Mackey & Lindenmayer 2009, PNAS 106:11635 | measurement | mainstream | open access (PMC) | undercuts | Record forest 1,867 tC/ha across 13 sites; 2,844 at one. |
| Falkowski 2012, Fundamentals of Geobiology ch. 2 | review | mainstream | university PDF (mislabelled online as Falkowski 2000) | undercuts | Kerogen 15,000,000 GtC; coal 3,510. |
| Bestougeff 1980, via Xie (EOLSS) Table 1 | tally | mainstream | open sample chapter; primary not obtained; table re-assembled from a two-column PDF | undercuts "Carboniferous coal" | Carboniferous 24.3%, Permian 31.7%, Jurassic 16.8%, Cretaceous 13.3%, Tertiary 13.5%. |
| Walker 2000, IEA Coal Research CCC/32 | review | mainstream | open extract | background | Three main coal periods: Carboniferous, Permian, Jurassic–Tertiary. |
| Woodmorappe 1986, ICC 1(2):205 | model | creationist | Wayback capture via browser | undercuts (own arithmetic) | Coal from 20 m of peat over 1.27% of the earth, taking coal as 1.5 × 10¹⁹ g (15,000 GtC, three to four times mainstream inventories); his own 11.6 m no-decay ceiling; Glenn Morton's printed "close to special pleading." |
Considered and not used
- Kuntze 1895, Geogenetische Beiträge (Woolley's source for Upper Carboniferous coals being "always associated with a marine environment"). Not sought; the paralic-cyclothem literature it anticipates is closed, and the point does not bear on whether the peat grew in place.
- The EASY%Ro solver temperatures computed in
research/formation.md. Not printed, because the twenty-parameter table was typed from memory and not verified against Sweeney & Burnham 1990. - (Closed 2026-09-02: Nadon's 1.2:1 to 2.2:1 and Ryer & Langer's 11.3:1 are now read in full and printed.)
- The LiveScience "fuel-making fungus" item in Eric's notes. A biofuel story about Gliocladium roseum; no creationist article uses it.
Sought and not obtained
Each of these was tried by every open route the research dossiers record, and by the gap-closure pass through the browser and the Wayback Machine (research/gap-closure.md), which is how Wise 2003, Woodmorappe 1986, Greb 2003 and DiMichele & Falcon-Lang 2011 were finally obtained. The article prints nothing that depends on the rest without saying so.
- Bodies (abstracts obtained) of Gastaldo 1984 and 1999, Gastaldo 1986 (Scottish Journal of Geology 22:77–83, the Fossil Grove paper behind Clarey & Tomkins 2016; the earlier citation to Palaios was wrong; its complete p. 77 synopsis is now on file and quoted), Calder et al. 2006 (the team's open 2005 guidebook and 1999 abstract now supply body-level detail), Fritz 1980, Yuretich 1984.
- Ammons et al. 1987 (Yellowstone ring matching).
- (Both later obtained: Ryer & Langer 1980 read in full 2026-09-02 through archive.org microfilm search-inside; Sweeney & Burnham 1990 Table 1 through the AAPG microfilm, quoted on the oil-and-gas literature page.)
- Bestougeff 1980 primary; BGR 2023 PDF; Large & Marshall 2015; Taylor, Taylor & Cúneo 1992 full text.
- Austin 1979, Penn State dissertation (the source of Oard's 38,000 km²).