Formation of coal

300 million years ago in what is now Great Britain a great delta-top swamp covered the country.

Strange tree-ferns grew in this primitive equatorial jungle.

Trees died and fell into the mud.

The water level rose and covered the trees in mud The water level rose and covered the trees in mud. This happened many times.

The tree trunks then rotted in an oxygen-free environment.

The rotten trunks got buried deeper and deeper…

…they got squashed under the rock layers and turned to coal.

300 million years later…

…miners have come along to dig up the coal.

And we burn it up a million times faster than it was formed, in the home or in factories and power stations.