Wildfires are in the news lately, but if you were in the Hailar Basin, Inner Mongolia during the Early Cretaceous (~100 million years ago) you’d find yourself in a lot of smoke! Even though it was tough times for vegetation, the palaeomires were able to accumulate incredible
Fully burned piece of wood in Seam #16, Yimin Coal Mine, Yimin Sag, Hailar Basin, Inner Mongolia, China.
thicknesses of peat – enough to make 70 m of coal after burial. That’s a lot. Parts of the coal are 80% charcoal so obviously fire was a big part of the ecology.
We’ve been researching this over the last few years (including during “pandemic interuptus”) and I gave a talk on this for a special online seminar of The Society for Organic Petrology earlier in the week (7 June 2023).
If you want to see the talk just follow this link: https://youtu.be/z9LjNcCUobI
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