Paleobotany supports the floating mat model for the origin of Carboniferous coal beds

Sanders, Roger W.; Austin, Steven A.

doi:10.15385/jpicc.2018.8.1.39

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(106 reference statements)

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“…Although a strong sedimentary case can be made for the floating mat model for prominent Carboniferous coal beds, many geologists resist this way of thinking because (1) the scale of mat sedimentation is colossal and associated with marine flooding, and (2) the coalforming plants are supposed to have been adapted uniquely to the terrestrial swamp environment. This second supposition is now challenged by an improved paleoecology of tree lycopsids and the dominant coal-forest tree-fern Psaronius (Sanders and Austin, 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, given the pervasive acceptance of the autochthonous origin of coal in coastal mires or swamps among conventional scientists and the objections within the creationist community, we need to examine the biology of the dominant coal plants in the post-1940 conventional paleobotanical literature to provide sound support by the scientific literature for a floating lifestyle. We survey the paleobotanical literature in a separate paper (Sanders and Austin, 2018).…”

Section: Latest Discussion Of Floating Mat Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Historical survey of the floating mat model for the origin of Carboniferous coal beds

Austin¹,

Sanders²

2018

PICC

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For three hundred years geologists and paleobotanists have been attempting to describe the process that deposited plant material that formed Carboniferous coal beds. Autochthonous and allochthonous explanations in the early Nineteenth Century showed how scientific methodology becomes involved in coal interpretation. Autochthonous modelers used the paleobotany-strata-petrology-environment method to argue that coal is a terrestrial swamp deposit. Allochthonous modelers used the petrology-strata-paleobotany-environment method to describe coal as a subaqueous deposit. The two methodologies are best displayed at the end of the Nineteenth Century in the consensus autochthonists versus the French School allochthonists. Three depositional models have been offered for the origin of coal: (1) peat swamp model, (2) drift model, and (3) floating mat model. Many paleobotany questions about lycopods and tree ferns had not been solved at the end of the Nineteenth Century, but the "floating mat model" offered a very robust path to direct research. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century when the uniformitarian paradigm prevailed, the floating mat model was intentionally suppressed. Now new data from coal petrology indicate that Carboniferous coal is detrital having accumulated underwater, not as a terrestrial swamp deposit. New data and methodology from paleobotany (Sanders and Austin, 2018) show lycopsids and tree ferns were capable of forming living floating mats able to support the trunks. Paleobotany of coal plants should now be best understood as supporting a floating raft that deposited the detritus that now forms Carboniferous coal beds. We present here for the first time a three-hundred-year historical survey of the notion that coal accumulated from floating vegetation mats.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Latest Discussion Of Floating Mat Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%