Spectacular Fossil Forests Found In US Coalmine

Smivs passes along a report up on the BBC about the fossil forests found in coal mines in Illinois. "The [US-UK] group reported one discovery last year, but has since identified a further five examples. The ancient vegetation — now turned to rock — is visible in the ceilings of mines covering thousands of hectares. These were among the first forests to evolve on the planet, [according to] Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang... 'These are the largest fossil forests found anywhere in the world at any point in geological time. It is quite extraordinary to find a fossil landscape preserved over such a vast area; and we are talking about an area the size of [the British city of] Bristol.' The forests grew just a few million years apart some 300 million years ago; and are now stacked one on top of another."

Comments

Note on Units

[Gat0r30y]

Cities of Bristol is now an accepted measurement of area? And here I thought I was paying attention to SI conventions. How many libraries of congre

Re:Note on Units

[CaptainPatent]

Duh,
47 libraries of congress to a Bristol measured at 47 degrees Reaumur 83 furlongs above knee level,
Man, I've know that for about a microcentury.

Re:Note on Units

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Anyone with worldly knowledge knows that Bristol was the standard unit of measurement for area within the British Empire for over 200 years. It seems I'll have to break it down for you ignorant Americans:

Bristol has an area of 1,184,832,000 square feet (source)
The Library of Congress has an area of 2,100,000 square feet (source)

Therefore 1 Bristol (and TFA's fossilised forest) == 564.2 Libraries of Congress

Re:Note on Units

[the_B0fh]

It depends on how pregnant that Bristol is.

OK, bad bad taste. My coat's the one full of shot.

Re:Note on Units

[Otter]

I'm accustomed to American news reports converting approximate metric quantities into foolishly precise non-metric numbers. (6213 miles, for example, or 220 pounds.) When this story hits the US news, the fossils will be 81% the size of Bristol, TN or 124% the size of Bristol, CT. (Those numbers are made up off the top of my head, so no correction from Wikipedia-crazed doofuses is necessary, BTW.)

Re:Note on Units

[plopez]

And how many firkins of beer could you keep at 45 deg. F for a fortnight assuming an ambient 70 deg temp assuming that each dram (weight, not fluid) of coal has 1373 btus of energy. Please state all simplifying assumptions. Keep 3 sig. figs.

Re:Note on Units

[Anonymous Coward]

Answer: 0.000

Simplifying Assumption: I drank it all.

Re:Note on Units

[sokoban]

My coat's the one full of shot.

Unfortunately, Bristol's baby's daddy's latex coat was not full of shot. That's why she is now pregnant.

Re:Note on Units

[SmokeyTheBalrog]

Awe common, you guys are too rough.

Parent had a somewhat vaguely pertinent comment.

You know Seagate named a line of harddrives Barracuda; just so they'd have a bunch of jokes on hand when someone asked about missing bites.

Here's to hoping I used the ; properly, probably not, since I'm just guessing.

Ten Thousand Square Meters

[sexconker]

A hectare is fine, too.

Great!

[kestasjk]

Let's burn it!

Re:Great!

[weirdcrashingnoises]

but do fossilized witches float?

Re:why looking at the ceiling?

[Anonymous Coward]

global warming comment

no, no

[commodoresloat]

The GP post asked about "libraries of congre," clearly a misspelling of "libraries of conger" as in [[daggertooth pike conger]], a species of fish. So we're really talking upwards of 7,000 libraries of conger rather than 47 libraries of congress.

Re:Some better images

[c6gunner]

Fine, how about a new mantra? If atheism and religion were sex ....

Atheism would be like masturbation - you know you're there by yourself, but hell, you're having a good time!

Religion would be like masturbating with a happy face drawn on your hand - it's still only you, but you like pretending that you're not alone.

Re:Football Fields

[shawb]

American or European football?