The weight of the trees was so great that the ones on the bottom got squished and became coal. That’s where coal is from. Bonus fact: the whole time this was happening, sharks were hunting in the oceans. Sharks are older than trees and fungus!

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Fungi in general are about twice as old as sharks. Roughly a billion years vs ~450 million years.

    The point is there just weren’t any which had bacteria to decompose trees, as no bacteria had evolved the ability yet. Until there were. Took millions of years though.

    Fun fact, now we have mushrooms which can deal with plastic.

    Pestalotiopsis microspora is a type of endophytic fungus discovered in the Amazon rainforest in 2011 which contains bacteria that can biodegrade and break down synthetic plastic polymers.

  • gloriousspearfish@feddit.dk
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    1 year ago

    At some point this will happen with plastics too. Soo much plastic is ending up in nature, with soo much energy ready for the taking. When one fungus or bacteria mutates just right to munch on that feast of plastic, that vast energy source will ensure that organism multiplies rapidly.

    And that is when plastic stops beeing useful for many of the tasks we humans use it for. If your plastic container decomposes as rapidly as a cardboard box, it will quickly become much less usefull.

    • zout@fedia.io
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      There are already organisms which can digest certain plastics. The problem (AFAIK) is they can digest other stuff more easily. So maybe in landfills ill work, not so much in nature were there’s other organic matter for the taking.

    • teft@lemmy.world
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      If your plastic container decomposes as rapidly as a cardboard box, it will quickly become much less usefull.

      How so? Plastic would retain its current properties, just something may break it down over time. Wood is still useful after all.

      • treadful@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Cardboard boxes last almost indefinitely in a cool dry warehouse. It’s not just a matter of time, but the environment that matters.

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        It would depend on how well we can control it.

        Ideally the material would be completely nonreactive for as long as you’re using it and then instantly degrade into component elements.

        The faster things degrade, the higher the chance that they’ll degrade when you don’t want it to.

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      Well the carboniferous period lasted 60 million years. If life takes even a fraction of that to figure out plastics, humans will be long, long dead by the time they do. But I’m sure it’ll be something interesting for future non-human civilizations to ponder over.

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There are entire beaches where sand is being stolen from. And the fans in the great deserts are the wrong kinds for glass apparently

          • Jarix@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Sorry wasn’t meant to be an argument against glass, was just a related thing i found out recently.

            I can see what i did now though. Suz mate

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    Bonus fact bonus fact: Shakes are older than the rings of Saturn.

    You did a great job in the Star Waes prequals, btw

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        1 year ago

        Oh humans will survive, no problem. I mean, not a lot of them and not happily, and there will probably be a nuclear war at the end there, but humans won’t go extinct. We’re too smart to not find a nice hole to hide in.

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        Trees breed by putting their babies into extremely resilient, heat and cold protected stasis pods that can go centuries without care and attention in the right conditions - like suviving an ice age or forest fire.

        Human babies are wimps by comparison - most of them would die after only a few days left outside at 0 degrees C.

        Humans probably will survive too - but how many?
        Elon + all this 3 mates.

        • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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          Yeah, I freeze my spurm and I’m pretty sure there’s a few thousand different women on this continent who have frozen eggs

      • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
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        Saying “trees” is like saying “mammals.”

        Those trees from back then were different species of trees.

        So, sure, mammals will survive, just like they survived the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs. But we humans were not those mammals. And we won’t be the mammals that survive our self-inflicted apocalypse.

        We will be long gone.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    The trees clogged the land, the water, and when one inevitably got struck by lightning, continent wide forest fires were common.

    IIRC, it’s these trees, not dinosaur bones that became most of the oil/gas deposits.

    It’s worth noting that when it comes to a species wrecking the environment, causing mass extinction, changing the climate, or spoiling the atmosphere, humans are not the first and we’re not the worst.

    • ndru@lemmy.world
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      Oh noooo, the coal existing because of evolutionary lag theory is one of my favourites. Continents colliding and creating wet topical basins is cool too, but it’s not such a good story to tell.