The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

Sanders, R.W., and S.A. Austin. 2018. Paleobotany supports the floating mat model for the origin of Carboniferous coal beds. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism , ed. J.H. Whitmore, pp. 525–552. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship. PALEOBOTANY SUPPORTS THE FLOATING MAT MODEL FOR THE ORIGIN OF CARBONIFEROUS COAL BEDS Roger W. Sanders , Core Academy of Science, PO Box 1076, Dayton, TN 37321 rsanders4175@gmail.com Steven A. Austin , Cedarville University, 251 N. Main St., Cedarville, OH 45314. mudflowman@comcast.net ABSTRACT A review of the history of the debate on origin of Carboniferous coal shows the priority that autochthonists have placed on paleobotanical data and interpretation. New data and methodology are offered here for interpreting the paleobotany and paleoecology of dominant Carboniferous coal plants: tree lycopsids and the tree-fern Psaronius. Lycopsid and tree-fern anatomies are characterized by air-filled chambers for buoyancy with rooting structures that are not suited for growth into and through terrestrial soil. Lycopsid development included boat-like dispersing spores, establishment of abundant buoyant, photosynthetic, branching and radiating rhizomorphs prior to upright stem growth, and prolonged life of the unbranched trunk prior to abrupt terminating growth of reproductive branches. The tree fern Psaronius is now understood better than previously to have had a much thicker, more flaring, and further spreading outer root mantle that formed a buoyant raft. Its increasingly heavy leaf crown was counterbalanced by forcing the basally rotting cane-like trunk and attached inner portion of the root mantle continually deeper underwater. Lycopsids and tree-ferns formed living floating mats capable of supporting the trunks. Paleobotany of coal plants should now be best understood as supporting a floating raft that deposited the detritus that now forms Carboniferous coal beds. KEY WORDS floating mat model, origin of coal, Carboniferous paleobotany, paleoecology, tree lycopsids, Lepidophloios , Stigmaria , tree fern, Psaronius Copyright 2018 Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA www.creationicc.org 525 INTRODUCTION Among geologists, two broad categories of depositional models for Carboniferous coals have been debated for three hundred years. The prevailing uniformitarian explanation of coal formation supposes coal beds to be authigenic and autochthonous (manufactured through a soil-forming environment from plants grown in place) and deposited within coastal swamps, delta plains or river levee environments. The enduring catastrophist explanation, never silenced during hundreds of years, supposes coal beds to be detrital and allochthonous (water-borne detritus transported to the submerged surface of sedimentation) and, likely, associated with rafts of floating vegetation. Our accompanying paper concerned the history of depositional models for the origin of Carboniferous coals (Austin and Sanders 2018). We sketched the familiar autochthonous versus allochthonous coal debate and argued that there are actually three depositional models for the origin of Carboniferous coals: (1) swamp model, (2) drift model, and (3) floating mat model. ROOT OF CONTROVERSY Advocates of the swamp model for Carboniferous coal devised paleoecological interpretations of plant fossils, especially rootlike structures of lycopods. These paleobotanical ideas are placed within strata sequences to assign the different rock layers to terrestrial swamp, floodplain and levee environments. Among the most famous early advocates of autochthony of Carboniferous coals (arguing from paleobotany through stratigraphy and petrology to paleoenvironment) were the field geologists Charles Lyell and John Dawson. Lyell (1855) and Dawson (1854) examined the rootlike fossil named Stigmaria in sandstones and shales at Joggins in Nova Scotia. They also described fossil lycopod trunks standing upright in shale strata, but they didn’t find them within coal beds. These upright trunks were interpreted to have formed in situ within fossil soils containing Stigmaria , and the associated coal beds were considered to be autochthonous, formed in large, topographically elevated, freshwater mires. Later at Joggins assemblages of upright trunks were supposed to represent in situ “fossil forests” on an elevated area. Among the autochthonous modelers of the origin of Carboniferous coal, the priority is coal paleobotany, not coal petrology. The autochthonist explanation of the origin of coal became the dominant view in the Twentieth Century following the methodology of Charles Lyell. Gastaldo (1984), McCabe (1984), Scott (1998), and O’Keefe et al. (2008) are modern advocates of autochthony using the “paleobotany- strata-petrology-environment” methodology. Advocates of the drift model for Carboniferous coals focused on coal petrology. They studied coal composition, structure and texture under the microscope from coal thin sections. Two classic drift modelers were the French petrologist/paleobotanists Cyrille Grand’Eury (1882) and Henry Fayol (1887). A vigorous “French School” of allochthonist thought continued through the Twentieth Century and remains with us today. Interpretations made on fine- textured cannel coal (lithotype durain) were extended into what are called coarser-textured and banded humic coal (lithotypes clarain and vitrain). Coal did not compare texturally well with modern in situ swamp peat. Advocates of the drift model saw detrital textures, oriented plant structures and very thin shale partings dominating coal microstructure without rooting evidences within the original peat. Strata associated with coal beds also seemed to indicate submerged conditions. According to the drift model,