Coal forest

A prehistoric wetland forest dominated by moisture-loving plants whose buried remains contributed to major coal deposits, especially during the Carboniferous Period.

Carboniferous: A geologic period lasting roughly 359 to 299 million years ago, marked by extensive coal-forming wetlands. Most classic coal forests flourished during this period, when humid lowlands spread across equatorial regions.
Coalification: The geological transformation of buried plant material into coal through heat, pressure, and time. It converts accumulated coal-forest remains into the coal seams found in sedimentary rocks.
Mazon Creek fossils: A Carboniferous fossil assemblage from Illinois, famous for exceptionally preserved plants and animals. Its fossils capture organisms associated with Pennsylvanian coal-swamp habitats.
Carboniferous rainforest collapse: A major fragmentation of tropical coal-swamp forests near the end of the Carboniferous. The collapse altered forest habitats and curtailed the vast wetland systems that produced coal.
Coal swamp: A waterlogged ecosystem where plant material accumulates and may eventually form coal. These wetlands provided the setting in which coal-forest vegetation grew and was buried.
Anoxic environment: An environment with little or no dissolved oxygen. Oxygen-poor water slowed decay, allowing more coal-forest plant material to persist.
Joggins Fossil Cliffs: A fossil-rich coastal rock formation in Nova Scotia containing Carboniferous forest layers and upright fossil trees. The cliffs preserve stacked records of forests, flood deposits, and coal seams.
Carboniferous rainforest: A broad term for humid tropical forests that covered parts of equatorial Pangaea during the Carboniferous. Coal forests formed a distinctive wetland component of these wider tropical forest systems.
Lycophyte: A lineage of vascular plants that includes clubmosses and their ancient relatives. Tree-sized lycophytes formed much of the canopy in many Carboniferous coal forests.
Sediment burial: The covering of surface material by accumulating sediment. Burial protected forest litter from complete decay and began its long transformation underground.

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