World's Largest Fossil Forest, and One of the Oldest

solitas writes in with news from last week of the discovery of a fossilized forest in Illinois. The forest was found in the ceiling of a working coal mine, 250 feet below the surface. It was drowned 300 million years ago in an earthquake, its discoverers speculate — here is a graphic of its formation. Geologists are excited because the huge fossilized forest, over 25 square miles in extent, preserves trees and other plants upright, as they grew.

Comments

Upright

[biocute]

The graphic doesn't show the most interesting discovery, because trees should still be standing upright underground.

Anyway, did the ground below just sank/moved suddenly (25 square miles no less)? And the entire area was sitting on a big slap of rock?

I wish the editors would put a warning

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, that graphic link sucked.

Resizing the browser is not cool.

Re:I wish the editors would put a warning

[karbin]

http://images.stltoday.com/stltoday/multimedia/fos sil.jpgDirect link to non resizing graphic.