paleo-wildfires from the Late Paleozoic onwards (Jasper et al. 2021). Many Permian coals are very rich in macerals such as inertinite and the sub-maceral fusinite, which is thought to be charcoal from the burning of dry plant matter (Retallack et al. 1996). Such evidence for fires has been described in places such as Australia (Vajda et al. 2020), China (Cai et al. 2021), and Brazil (Benicio et al. 2019). A case has been put that Siberian Traps volcanic eruptions and intrusions burned large volumes of a combination of coal and vegetation (Elkins-Tanton et al. 2020). Evidence for coal combustion includes the presence of coal fly ash layers and cenospheres (hollow mineral spheres found as a coal combustion by-product at thermal power plants) at the end-Permian boundary in Arctic Canada (Grasby et al. 2011). Ejection of combusted coal ash into the atmosphere from Siberia has been considered to have been carried on global air currents to locations including Arctic Canada (Elkins-Tanton et al. 2020). Much literature has been written associating Siberian Traps volcanism with the end-Permian mass extinction which is widely regarded as the greatest mass extinction of lifeforms in the geological record. The Permian coal-bearing sediments of the Perth Basin are considered to be part of the large alluvial outwash fan, bordering the highlands of Antarctica (Tewarri and Veevers 1991) (Fig. 3). The coal was deposited in a terrestrial braidplain, which in southwestern Australia drained towards the north-northwest (Wilson 1990). Foreset Figure 7. Global distribution of major coal deposits (after Shao et al. 2020) with broad trends in plants according to their use of water. Worldwide, coal deposits are absent in the Early Triassic (the Coal Gap) and Early Paleozoic strata. Post-Paleozoic plants are dominantly plants that need less water, compared with plants that were dominant in the Palaeozoic. DICKENS Flood Waters Lead to Seafloor Spreading 2023 ICC 454
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