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[–] 108 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Also cool that for a period of like 60 million years, nothing decomposed dead trees. As they would die or fall over, they'd just stay there, piling up. This is where most oil came from. The massive amounts of trees stacking up before bacteria and fungus evolved to decomposed them. Imagine 60 million years worth of trees just lying around.

*Thought I'd add an edit, since this post got quite a few eyes on it: It was mostly coal that all those trees turned into. Not oil.

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  • [–] 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Didn't those trees become coal, not oil?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    I think near water they became oil and far from water they became coal

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  • [–] 56 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No, most coal comes from plants in swamps, because the water helped preserve the organic matter.

    Plants in swamps die -> organic matter on the bottom of the swamp -> peat -> brown coal -> black coal.

    Oil apparently comes mostly from plankton.

    On the different origins: https://www.carboeurope.org/how-are-fossil-fuels-formed-the-science-behind-oil-coal-and-natural-gas/

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Mushrooms are the great undertaker, the great decomposer. The Langoliers. They are just waiting to eat you, and they're happy to share their fruits in the meantime. They're fattening you up. They can wait.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    That Langoliers reference spotted in the wild!

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I imagine dead trees were flammable, even back then. And oxygen levels were 15% higher. Can you imagine the forest fires?

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I love this fact, and am curious where you learned it?

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  • [–] 40 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I learned it nearly 30 years ago in school. I just did a search and found a link about it, though.

    Also, seems that either I remembered wrongly, or my teacher made a mistake, but it seems it was most of the worlds coal; not oil, that came from all the piles of trees from that period.

    https://www.thorogood.co.uk/treevolution-how-trees-came-first-and-rot-came-later-in-earths-deep-past/

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    Correct. In theory, we could make more oil in the lab. We cannot make more coal, because the wood will get broken down by bacteria far before it turns to peat, lignite, sub-bituminous, or bituminous coal, and much less anthracite.

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