Consider the alternate history where fungi never evolved the ability to digest lignin, the tough woody material found in many plants.
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Consider the alternate history where fungi never evolved the ability to digest lignin, the tough woody material found in many plants.
The period of time where plants could produce lignin, but fungi couldn't break it down resulted in the massive coal deposits found in the earth.
Some bacteria can break down lignin, but they require wet conditions to do this. This is what happens in the gut of termites.
So, of course, we can imagine an alternate history where termites rule the earth.
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Consider the alternate history where fungi never evolved the ability to digest lignin, the tough woody material found in many plants.
The period of time where plants could produce lignin, but fungi couldn't break it down resulted in the massive coal deposits found in the earth.
Some bacteria can break down lignin, but they require wet conditions to do this. This is what happens in the gut of termites.
So, of course, we can imagine an alternate history where termites rule the earth.
@futurebird 1/5
I will confess that even though the idea that fungi took tens of millions of years to evolve a complete lignin breakdown process is widely accepted in paleontology, I have some issues with it.First, once you get away from Europe and eastern N. America, there is an awful lot of coal that is younger than the carboniferous; Wyoming has whole mountain ranges of Paleogene coal, and Colorado and Utah also have huge amounts of coal younger than the Carboniferous.
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Consider the alternate history where fungi never evolved the ability to digest lignin, the tough woody material found in many plants.
The period of time where plants could produce lignin, but fungi couldn't break it down resulted in the massive coal deposits found in the earth.
Some bacteria can break down lignin, but they require wet conditions to do this. This is what happens in the gut of termites.
So, of course, we can imagine an alternate history where termites rule the earth.
@futurebird and more, and therefore cheaper for longer, coal, which may be the most nightmarish part of it—albeit a better option for centuries of very cold peasants—compared to which termites ruling the earth don’t seem that terrible
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@futurebird and more, and therefore cheaper for longer, coal, which may be the most nightmarish part of it—albeit a better option for centuries of very cold peasants—compared to which termites ruling the earth don’t seem that terrible
From what I know there isn't any chance of running out of coal and it would be hard for it to be any cheaper than it already is. It's not hard to find.
