A prehistoric forest was recently uearthed in Southern Illinois

While I typically do not think of Springfield as being in Southern Illinois, I guess technically it is. See, I live near the river town of Metropolis Illinois. But apparently they unearthed a prehistoric forest in one on the mines up there. Here is an article on the story, complete with 37 pictures at the bottom of the page.

Why is this important you might ask? Furthermore why am I talking about it here? Well that is because this forest was dated to exist 307 million years ago. And scientist believe it will give them insight into what is now happening on this Earth.

You see, 307 million years ago puts this squarely in the carboniferous period. You know the period in geological time when almost all of our coal was formed. And it is hoped that geologists and botanist can tell us what happened to turn all of the various life forms into coal. See back in the earth's atmosphere was compromised of primarily carbon instead of oxygen like it is now. Such carbon dioxide levels gave rise to a quite diverse plant population. And such plant populations we now know today as coal. This is the largest prehistoric forest ever unearthed; right here in my native Southern Illinois!