So what happened to the vast areas of forest that didn’t decompose? It’s an inconceivably large amount of matter to pile up, kilometers deep. The answer is coal. Human industrialization has been powered on these seams of un-rotted plant matter, somehow kept out of fungal reach. (If given the chance, many types of fungi readily decompose coal, and a species known as the “kerosene fungus” thrives in the fuel tanks of aircraft.) Coal
