The Origin of Most Coal on Earth (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The Origin of Most Coal on Earth (2016)

nationalgeographic.com

111 pointslordnacho66 comments

So the trees had evolved, but the bacteria had not caught on yet. "It’s a curious mismatch. Food to eat but no eaters to eat it." In a few million years, they might be saying the same thing about plastic.

Sooner than you think: https://www.sciencealert.com/new-plastic-munching-bacteria-c...

Oooh I can't wait to have my blender rot!

Maybe we could genetically engineer a new kind of tree with undigestible wood, to replicate this era to deliberately sequester carbon.

Plastic.

So by using biodegradable packaging I am contributing to global warming? Oh the irony.

No, biodegradable is carbon-neutral. Plastic itself is carbon-neutral although it's a byproduct of carbon-polluting oil. We'd have to make plastic out of atmospheric carbon for it to have any sequestering effect.

If biodegrade-able products are from carbon based life, and carbon based life contains carbon, and biology breaks down biodegrade-able products, wouldn't breaking down something that contains carbon be releasing carbon into the air? And wouldn't that be NOT carbon neutral.

Carbon neutral means the carbon that gets released at the end was initially taken out of the atmosphere, not the ground.

If you burn a piece of paper it's carbon neutral because the tree absorbed that carbon from the air. If you burn a piece of plastic you're adding carbon that used to be sequestered below the surface.

How long must an item be buried before burning it loses its carbon neutrality?

If you first ask why CO2 in the atmosphere is a problem, then you'll find the answer. It's the same time scale at which the change in atmospheric CO2 is a problem. It's only a problem because it's changing rapidly. It would be OK if it happened slowly enough for species to adapt or at least for human activity to adapt without too much disruption to our daily lives. Ultimately, it's rapid disruption to our daily lives we don't want. We don't want to have to move somewhere else, have less spending power of our wages, get a different job, or change our eating habits. But if it happens gradually generation by generation, so we hardly notice it, then it'll be OK.

This is very much not true. Look at Venus, which was (we believe) subject to a runaway greenhouse event. Also, the Permian period ("Snowball Earth"). Climate change can be catastrophic whether it occurs fast or slowly.

But he has a point. The real answer is more complicated. Slow change gives natural selection several generations to evolve a complex solution to the problem and our minds the time to come up with a technological solution.

Life exists within the boundaries of available sunlight and liquid water. Changes that occur slowly within these boundaries don't necessarily have to be catastrophic. However if the changes exceed these boundaries whether fast or slow then yes the change will indeed be catastrophic.

Venus possibly has no liquid water and snowball earth doesn't have much water either, hence the catastrophe.

Venus had oceans at the time. They boiled off. The Permian Earth had oceans too, just ice capped ones. Microbial life and the simplest algae-like life survived, but that’s it.

I just don’t think it’s all that correct or useful to say the equivalent of “life will adapt” when life has never adapted to changes this fast, and we are hurtling towards changes so extreme as to wipe out complex life entirely.

As long as water and sunlight are available, we're good.

Venesians, if any existed, would disagree.

On earth there is life capable of existing in water far hotter than boiling. Not little bacterias either. Actual multicellular animals.

Catastrophic change will leave pockets of deviants in some dark corners of the earth that will remain protected somewhat. These deviants will go on to populate the world.

There was one such catastrophic change that happened before. A meteor. Wiped out an entire class of creatures called dinosaurs, now replaced with mammals. Mammals at this time lived as tiny rodents underground.

There is no life anywhere on Earth that is able to survive 90 atm and 500 deg C, like the surface of Venus. And fwiw, the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs is one of the milder mass extinction events in Earth's history. We are on trajectories in excess of those that predated the worst mass die-offs in Earth's history, and more resemble the lead-up to Venusian conditions.

You can't maintain liquid water at those temps. I don't think we are on trajectory for Venus like weather.

Plastic does degrade over time. It might take a long time, but then, there's a lot of plastic.

Only if you don’t count the supply chain

* Biodegradable is just, ya know, degradable by organisms within a relatively short timeframe

* The process of refining plastics and manufacturing products is generally NOT carbon-neutral

Yes, a bit more than by using non-biodegradable ones.

Plastic doesn't literally grow on trees...yet.

"Styrene is named after storax balsam, the resin of Liquidambar trees of the Altingiaceae plant family."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrene

Plastics are typically made from oil, but they can also be manufactured from corn, or other plant matter.

Wood engineered to not rot naturally would also have a market, in addition to sequestering carbon.

Accoya make and sell a wood product where the wood lignin has been chemically altered by means of acetylation to achieve this very property: https://www.accoya.com/

The point about the long thin trunks with almost no root system is interesting. Were they growing between the logs of previously fallen trees and being supported by them? Maybe they look so spindly today because they didn't have to provide most of their lateral stability?

And of course they only grow in hot climates because pulling all of that carbon out of the atmosphere would have caused the planet to cool down and nothing would survive the continually freezing conditions closer to the poles.

Wouldn't there be little-to-no soil? So their roots would be anchoring in rock AFAIK?

The soil would be peat I think. Leafy parts of plants would decay, just the woody parts would remain. Probably pretty thin soil though, hence the shallow roots.

Reminds me of bamboo, which also have long thin trunks and roots that don't go too deep. Mostly 30cm, rarely more than a metre.

> The point about the long thin trunks with almost no root system is interesting.

As a hint, see the pictures in this article of the roots of the palm trees:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/141/1/0...

What we consider as the "today's typical trees" are actually the most evolved forms of the older simpler designs.

So trees used to be non-biodegradable. This makes me wonder what would happen if you took a load of plastic bottles and subjected them to geological amounts of pressure, heat and time.

oil?

Considering that plastic is hydrocarbons already you'd probably just get different hydrocarbons.

Well microbes have been discovered that break the plastic down, I assume that with enough time there will be additional microbes that will develop and evolve to break it down just as what happened with trees.

I have heard this theory several years ago but at the time I thought it was considered a sort of fringe theory, has that changed? Is this pretty well accepted now?

Pretty sure this is the main theory and has been for a very long time.

There is an alternative (non-biological) theory for hydrocarbon production but not sure whether many take it seriously.

One of my classmates in high school Geography put forward the alternative theory that God put the coal there for us to use but the Devil added fake evidence so that the coal would appear to come from ancient plants and thus confuse us about how old the world is.

Our teacher asked for a show of hands and 5 out of our 25-30 student class agreed with this theory.

And this is why young earthers get coal in their stockings on Christmas morning. If people have this much distrust in creation, maybe they should consider Gnosticism.

Why is there so much stock in specifically a very literal reading of the most modern translations of Genesis? Even as a religious person, I don't see where they're coming from. Arguments to be made about Genesis originally referring to "creation" (ex nihilo) vs "organization" are already pretty weak, what reason do we then have to assume that despite all the evidence of an ancient Earth that it was literal Earth-days, and that the idea it was literal Earth-days is somehow so important to God's plan that the Devil would fake evidence of fossils to try and get people to think it was NOT Earth-days?

Also, why does an infinitely powerful, just and benevolent God allow his chief rival to fuck with us so much?

> Also, why does an infinitely powerful, just and benevolent God allow his chief rival to fuck with us so much?

Because it suits him? Partner sounds like a better description than rival.

Unless of course, you aren't talking about Trump and Putin?

As a religious person what is the justification for a non literal interpretation of the Bible? Was there a commandment that says God wanted you to interpret that way? Why does God want his messages to be non literal instead of literal?

Perhaps each person is given a choice. You have three. Interpret the Bible literally, interpret the Bible symbolically or not even play the game and realize that no interpretation of the Bible is correct because the book is just as fictive as the Koran or any other holy book from an ancient religion.

How would a human reconcile with their beliefs and how they were raised with reality as it exists around them. Science says that no one can turn water into wine, the Bible says that it can. Logically speaking the Bible is wrong. But when I've spent years reading the Bible and my entire identity is built around religion my only option is to say that the Bible is not to be interpreted literally. I must create a lie that validates reality and validates my identity.

Also how would I know that I'm lying to myself? If I or anyone I knew was doing this form of psychological self manipulation, how would I know?

You can't until you read this.

Nothing is really provable. The bible is full of oddness and inconsistency, but if you must tie your identity to your reading of a book, do it. It doesn't matter, except that you behave rationally (evaluate the problems world and the people around as they really are, as best you can), and decently (try to fix said problems).

If you want to use the bible as an excuse to stone gays to death cos god says so then I'll oppose you because in my eyes that's utterly irrational and hateful. If you say it's between then and god, and take happiness in their happiness to be who they are while we share a planet, even if you don't understand it or agree with it, there's no point of friction between us.

I use sexuality merely as an example, there are many others.

Do as you will, just be decent, kind, rational.

>> As a religious person what is the justification for a non literal interpretation of the Bible?

The fact that there are parts that are explicitly given as being symbolic. This is actually addressed in the New Testament when Christ explains that he teaches in parables because he's speaking directly to a specific level of understanding.

>> Science says that no one can turn water into wine

No, science does not know how to turn water into wine. There was once a point where science did not know how to turn one element into another element, but it would have been incorrect to say that science had said no one could do it - that's confusing science with what people think. If there's a being that created the universe, I'd imagine that can pretty much do what they want with molecules.

>> If I or anyone I knew was doing this form of psychological self manipulation, how would I know?

How do you ever know that about anything? You trust your senses, but you have no more justification for doing so than people who have had intense spiritual experiences do for following up on those experiences. I view the intense spiritual experiences I've had as being a sense - it's no more rational for people to expect me to ignore what I've felt than it is for me to expect you to do the same things if you haven't felt that.

>>>The fact that there are parts that are explicitly given as being symbolic. This is actually addressed in the New Testament when Christ explains that he teaches in parables because he's speaking directly to a specific level of understanding.

You missed the symbolism here. What you thought he meant was actually symbolism for an entirely different meaning. There's about 4 layers of indirection here meaning that each symbolic representation is in itself a symbolic representation of something else. This happens on four distinct levels. Reinterpreting this statement the correct way can change the entire interpretation of the bible.

I don't follow what you're saying. Are you facetiously parodying your impression of religion? If so, let's just be clear that of the two of us, you're the one preventing a rational conversation and stereotyping me based on what you've seen other say, something most people hate when religions do it.

Taking a literal interpretation of the easy reading version of a message from a source purporting to represent the creator of the universe, means that you can declare yourself correct with the absolute minimum amount of thinking required. You would then be utterly wrong about reality, but everyone is probably utterly wrong about reality anyway, so might as well take the quick route.

Congratulations, you weren’t indoctrinated by an extremist religious group.

5 out of 25 are pilots now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJtCDSnIzGQ

Hmm, I must have misunderstood last time, pretty cool nonetheless!

I believe the theory you're referring to is what Wikipedia calls the theory of Abiogenic petroleum origin [1]. But that theory is for hydrocarbon liquids and gasses, not for coal. The two theories can be complementary, i.e. coal and peat from buried plant matter and (some or all) oil from planetary upwelling (and perhaps from 'deep microbes').

I'm not taking a position here myself although I do find the theory interesting, particularly the theory of a deep microbial biota. I think you're right that it is generally discounted in the mainstream scientific community.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Thanks, that's it.

Geologist here -- the delayed-evolution-of-lignase hypothesis has been criticized in the literature recently [1], but I'd say the jury's still out.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517943113

I hadn't known about the microbe end of the story. I'm kinda disappointed. I had long imagined that the inevitable process of fossil fuel generation and accumulation would eventually turn the earth into a flaming tarball, and it was those crazy humans who finally figured out how to tar -xvf the sucker to the anthropocene.

I can't see much discussion of the nature of these plants and seems to miss some interesting stuff (unless I missed it), so here's my recollection from reading around.

The 'trees' were club mosses, not trees. Moss as in moss in the usual sense, except got big. One common sort was lepidodendron (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidodendron). Note the distinct scale pattern on the trunks.

Absolutely fascinatingly to me, the descendents of these may still exist as quillwort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoetes).

"Tree" is a paraphyletic taxon; today you have conifer trees, angiosperm trees, cycad trees, and so on, all of which are more closely related to non-tree plants than to each other. Even among angiosperms, you have lots of different trees that are more closely related to non-trees than to each other — a black locust tree is more closely related to a soybean plant than it is to an apple tree. So there's no reason to claim that a club-moss tree isn't a tree. Bamboo, maybe you would have a point, but not club-moss trees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree

Very good points, thanks. I know that legumes fall into their own group so if a locust bean is a legume then naturally it must be more closely related to soybean vines than an apple - but I just never thought of it that way. A rather new perspective.

Personally I wouldn't class a cycad as a tree, nor a date palm, and I wouldn't call a lepidodendron one either, but after a bit of reflection I've no good reason to take that view, so thanks for all this!

Note that “dendron” is usually translated to English as “tree” but of course that's a pretty weak argument—there's no requirement that words in different languages denote precisely coextensive categories.

The author is Robert Krulwich, co-host of "Radiolab". Try not to imagine his voice while reading it. Here's a related piece: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/from-tree-to-shining-tree

I knew I knew that name from somewhere.

Could this also be why a lot of the dinosaurs died out? There was no bacteria’s, so the food was abundant until we got the bacteria. Not only abundant, but it never got bad. So the biggest ‘eater’ was the winner.

I've heard that the arrival of fungi on the scene was what ended this ancient coal formation process. But this article says it was bacteria living in insect guts. I wonder which -- the fungi or these bacteria -- is responsible for more wood decomposition.

Imagine having Trichonympha as pets? Of course you cant see them, but if you set up the video camera right with the proper lens and display the view on a 16 inch screen in the living room :D Wait, that's a great idea!

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