Rapid coal formation

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Map showing the net coal thickness isopach of the Wyodak-Anderson coal zone in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming and Montana.

The following is an excerpt from The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris. 1994, pp. 162-166.

Coal is the end product of the metamorphism of tremendous quantities of plant remains under the action of temperature, pressure and time. Coal has been found throughout the geologic column and in all parts of the world, even in Antarctica. Many coal fields contain great numbers of coal-bearing strata, interbedded with strata of other materials, each coal seam having a thickness which may vary from a few inches to several feet. And each foot of coal must represent many feet—just how many, no one knows—of plant remains, so that the coal measures testify of the former existence of almost unimaginably massive accumulations of buried plants.

Coal geologists have long been divided into two camps, those favoring the autochthonous (growth-in-place) theory of coal origin and those favoring the allochthonous (transportation and deposition) theory [which is consistent with the Noahic Flood]. Consistent uniformitarianism, of course, tends to favor the former and attempts to picture the coal-forming [growth in place theory] process in terms of modern peat deposits forming under swamplands, such as in the Dismal Swamp of Virginia. The great thickness of the coal beds is accounted for on this theory by assuming a continuous subsidence [= a subsiding: a sinking of vegetation to the 'bottom'] of the land more or less keeping up with the slow accumulation of plant remains. The interbedded strata of non-carbonaceous deposits [= inorganic material] are [again] explained by [assuming] alternating marine transgressions [i.e., periodic local flooding] and resulting periods of sediment deposition. A wide variety of types of these intervening sediments have been noted and attempts made to explain them in terms of 'cyclothems' or recurring cycles of deposition of different kinds of materials corresponding to the different stages of marine transgression and regression...

If the autochthonous theory of coal bed is correct, it is testimony to quite a marvelous sequence of circumstances. One or two or three coal seams formed by alternate stages of swamp growth, peat accumulation, marine transgression and emergence, etc., might be believable, but the assertion that this cycle was repeated scores of times in the same spot, over a period of perhaps millions of years, is not so easy to accept...

This theory, which is purportedly uniformitarian in essence, is actually anything but that, as there is no modern parallel for any of its major features. The peat-bog theory constitutes a very weak attempt to identify a modern parallel, but it will hardly suffice...

...there is no actual evidence that peat is now being transformed into coal anywhere in the world...

As a matter of fact, except for uniformist preconceptions, it would seem that the actual physical evidence of the coal beds strongly favors the theory that the plant accumulations had been washed into place. The coal seams are almost universally found in stratified deposits. The non-carbonaceous sediments intervening between the coal seams are always said to have been water-borne and deposited. The great thickness of some seams and the great numbers of seams in a given locality also constitute prima facie evidence of rapid and cyclic currents carrying and depositing heavy burdens of organic material...

Space precludes further discussion or the question of coal formation, although many more evidences could be marshalled in favor of the allochthonous theory, such as the frequent splitting of coal seams into two or more independent seams, the many fossil trunks that have been found extending through two or more seams, the 'coal balls' of matted and exceptionally well-preserved fossils, the great boulders often found in coal beds, the frequent grading of coal seams into stratified layers of shale or other sedimentary rock, etc....

Regardless of the exact manner in which coal was formed, it is quite certain that there is nothing corresponding to it taking place in the world today. This is one of the most important of all types of geologic formations and one on which much of our supposed geologic history been based. Nevertheless, the fundamental axiom of uniformity, that the present is the key to the past, completely fails to account for the phenomena.

Researchers have shown that plant matter can be turned into coal in a matter of hours.

"A rather startling and serendipitous discovery resulted...These observations suggest that in their formation, high rank coals...were probably subjected to high temperature at some stage in their history. A possible mechanism for formation of these high rank coals could have been a short time, rapid heating event." [Six Hours], George R. Hill (Dean of College of Mines & Mineral Industries at the University of Utah), Chemical Technology, May, 1972, pp. 292-296.

"Scientists estimate that it takes 3–10 ft of compacted plant material to form 1 ft of bituminous coal (Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, 2000)." [1]

The mineral coal deposits, that appear in horizontal layers of a wonderful regularity, not very often mixed with accidental inclusions of another matter, vary much in thickness, from two centimeters or less to 20 meters or more. [2]