[Gasification] formation of coal in carboniferous era

[Anand Karve]

Dear List,
thanks for all the comments. The thought expressed in my original
message occured to me after I heard a lecture last month by one
Professor Sakhalkar from a local college in our area (Maharashtra
State, India).  He found a fungus growing on plastic. He isolated the
fungus, identified it and cultured it. He showed , that under
laboratory conditions, it grew on a medium containing polyethylene as
the exclusive source of carbon. The growth was very slow, and he said
that this discovery was only of academic interest, because it would
take the organism about 500 years to completely consume the plastic
provided to it. But this showed, that the process of evolution had
already produced an organism that feeds on plastic. The manufacturers
of cables would have to add an antifungal agent to the insulation
coating the cables.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On 9/22/14, David Meed <david at meed.ca> wrote:
> (Private reply because I do not wish to stir up the waters, so to
> speak, but there is another possible explanation...)
>
> Just something to think about:
>
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 5:51 AM, Anand Karve <adkarve at gmail.com> wrote:
>> All the coal deposits in the world date back to the carboniferous era.
>> It states in geology textbooks that the earth was covered at that time
>> by dense forests. The trunks of trees that died piled up on the land
>> and were converted to coal by some geological process. Even today
>
> If we consider the worldwide flood recorded in the Bible, what would
> happen to trees buried suddenly under 2km of water and silt/debris
> from flooding.  I image there is not a lot of oxygen 2km down in the
> ocean and the pressures are not inconsequential.  It would be
> interesting to apply that kind of pressures to wood and see what
> happens to it.  (I use the figure 2km because the Bible records that
> the waters were several feet above the highest mountains at that time.
> Maybe 2km is conservative.)
>
> David Meed (lurker, learning about gasification, and firm believer in
> creation)
>


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***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)