A question about coal

by | posted in: Noah's Flood | 2
Brown coal sits on white clay with a sharp contact (photo Philip Rayment).
Brown coal at Yallourn, Victoria, sits on white clay with a sharp contact (photo Philip Rayment).
A reader sent the following email with a question about coal:

Hello,

First thank you for your brilliant site. There is a wealth of technical information put in simple terms, which is a great help to a non-geologist like me. Evolutionists really do tie themselves in mental knots trying to deny the plain evidence don’t they!

I have a question about this article: Coal: Memorial to the Flood

You say:

“When the brown coal burns, it leaves hardly any ash behind. The ash produced from most of these coals ranges from 1.5–5%,6 which is less than the 3–18% ash in typical peat.7 The low ash is consistent with the vegetation being transported and washed by water, not with lying in a swamp for tens of thousands of years.”

Why should the brown coal transported by water burn more efficiently? Is it because mineral debris has been washed out of it, which would not happen if it was built up slowly in a swamp?

This would seem the most likely answer, but maybe there is some other factor that I missed?

Thanks and God bless you.

Jeannette

Here’s my response:

Hi Jeannette,

It is not because the mineral debris has been washed out, but because it has not got into the coal.

If the vegetation had been lying around, gradually accumulating over thousands of years, we would expect airborne sand and dust to be dropped on it, and muddy water to flood it, leaving much non-combustible material in it. The low percentage of ash indicates that there was not much time for these impurities to accumulate in it.

2 Responses

  1. Frank Norton
    |

    It is interesting that nature takes so much time to produce fossilised carbon products like diamonds, oil, coal and amber, when modern factories can produce them with carbon in a very short time. Like colored diamonds and amber.

    With the size of the planet, and the varied conditions, one would surly think that these substances would be produced in a very short time somewhere.

    For example the prior natural nuclear pile that went active millions of years ago, and recently discovered.

  2. Dr Barry Napier
    |

    There are examples of modern fossilization… gloves dropped into a well that fossilized to stone in less than a year, etc. Once we eliminate evolution from our thinking, genuine science steps in and we have to find a better answer than millions of years!