Meet the Fossils
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- Опубліковано 10 лис 2022
- Coals are fossil fuels that generate power, but it has not always been coal… If we go 300 million years back in time we can meet the fossils that have become fossil fuels. These ancient trees called lepidendrons have since become a solid layer of carbon that we are slowly using to create fuels.
Created by Robert Krulwich and Nate Milton
I think it’s kind of important to add that the trees only got compressed and turned into coal because at the time those trees lived and died, the bacteria that decompose wood hadn’t evolved then - so no more coal since these evolved;)
Yup, depressing really, because we use all our fossil fuels on stuff that can be powered alternately
If we were half as smart or altruistic as we should be we'd have stopped using fossil fuel as soon as we discovered it was finite and found an alternative more quickly
Nuclear but no one wants to do thst because they are potatoes😊
@@TroglethByproducts that it'll last for millennials.
@@TenebresLikesToObserve the longer it lasts the less harmful it is
what's sad is that we might not get anything like coal anymore since it was formed when wood cellulose is relatively new and no organism, not even microbes were able to digest the compound. Since organisms have already developed wood-eating capabilities, coal will no longer form in such abundance anymore.
Thats why Humans will find alternative energy sources. Right now everybody is exploring the possibility of making artificial suns in labs.
I dont think thats accurate. Pretty sure there are a lot of organic plant matters that can make coal under extreme pressures down there
@@ClyDIley true, trees can still fossilize but we won't get another entire layer of millions of years worth of dead, undecomposed trees.
trillions of compressed shopping bags will form the fuel of future civilizations
@@azralia4265you can just say fusion energy lol but not to mention obviously solar power wave power in the ocean they're even some devices that can generate power from earthquakes and obviously geothermal energy and wind power plus plenty of other cool bioengineered power producing technologies etc . The biggest problem we have right now is just storage and even that has breakthroughs every other day with different materials and modes of storing. one of the simplest and coolest ones I've seen recently are the molten sand silos that have tons of sand that is heated up to thousands of degrees and holds on to the heat for a long time and can be used to generate electricity or be funneled directly into homes to heat them during winter !
You forgot that the reason they piled up was because bacteria didn't know how to eat the woody fibers of the trees
Yeah, after 60 million years some fungi developed the enzimes capables to decompose the lignin of the wood and therefore no more fossic carbon was produced.
The most important thing of this topic was missed in the video
@@lautaromorales2903enzymes
Wait that means we literally are running out of that source of energy @@lautaromorales2903
@@TheThingoftheSky thats why its a "nonrenewable" resource.
If we want new coal the trees must evolve
So fossil fuel is basically solar powered
If you trace everything back, most energy we use comes from nuclear reactions
Almost all energy on earth comes from the sun. Exceptions are
1) radioactive substances, mostly nuclear decay via the weak force but we can also harness the strong nuclear force.
2) geothermal energy, which is part latent heat from the earth’s formation part radioactivity
3) the portion of tidal forces from the moon’s gravity
Everything else: nuclear fusion occurs at the core of the sun to create lots of high-energy photons which hit the earth, which then either do work as heat or facilitate photosynthesis in plants (among a handful of other uses).
@@52flyingbicycles Cool, so does any living thing use geothermal to “get energy”, I think there’s a mushroom that uses nuclear decay radioactivity
@@Cheesepuff8 some organisms at the bottom of the ocean use energy from hydrothermal vents, which are geothermal powered. It’s called “chemosynthesis”
@@Cheesepuff8 yeah, some fungus that evolve and eats radioactive material on Chernobyl, weird and interesting fella
You missed the bit about how the microorganisms that break down the dead trees were absent during that period hence why the trees didn't rot away.
So, according to this information, Coal can run out
yes @@nanajp coal is non renewable.
More specific there where no fungi that could break down lignin in wood
@@nanajpof course
@@nanajpthis is not new information, even if more coal could form the process typically takes longer than the entirety of human history
Also i heard that there is no microorganisms that able to digest wood at that time period so when tree died its just sit right there
Petrified wood
@@Wachuma-icp99no, coalified
pre fungi is just rocks
I wonder if same thing could happen with plastic
yes but there is more to it, while they evolved that is true coal is still being made to this day look up the kpg boundary exposure in Colorado you'll see coal above and below. that was hundreds of millions of years after the evolution of cellulase.
Funny how there's a literal creepypasta about seeing a lepidodendron means you have fallen into a time ripped
Wat
@@TheThingoftheSky the extinction memes
funny analog horror
Idksterling
Ohohoho Money 💸
Back then, the bacteria that eats and decays the fibrous material in fallen trees didn't exist yet. That's why coal specifically comes from trees of this period.
They are older than bacteria?
@@SweetAkorn That specific kind, apparently
@@SweetAkornNo, but the bacteria with the necessary enzyme to break down wood didn’t exist yet.
Fungus, not bacteria
It's fascinating how bacteria evolved because now we have certain kinds of microorganisms that can decompose plastic as well!
Robery Krulwich I've been waiting to hear your voice again since you left Radiolab. Its good to hear you again.
Thank you. I knew I knew that voice.... but it would have bugged me for a long time to determine who it was!
Absolutely love the art style!!
It really looks like zeeeko‘s style but idk if that was actually him
"Aye man, let me get a charcoal but hold the char."
"No char?"
Ahem... No char
So how did paper become rock, it's arch nemesis? (Rock paper scissors)
*crickets*
*It’s the tree.*
*wake up*
wake up
do not panic.
Remain calm
remain calm
We can't get coal ever again. Decomposition worked differently back then. Now we have microbes and fungi that cam break down tough wood structure..
"If you saw this tree - your day is ruined..."
🎅🐡
I WAS ABT TO SAY THAT
@@Kerguelen.Mapping This man is too late to comment 🎅🐻
@@alexanderthemidI this man is dead, he just dosen't know it yet🎅🎅🐈
The reason they piled up is because nothing had evolved to consume lignin, which too millions of years, and no more coal has been made since. It's also why the oxygen levels were so hight, hence monstrous insects such as meganura.
typo
That’s not true. Decomposers for wood existed during this time period
@@siddsunil3731 no, they couldn't do anything with lignin, which is why we have coal.
@@yrknutzreek great flood burried the forest.
Why? Because all fossil we got are the result of water & erosion, just like noah flood.
@@yrknutzreek my comment got deleted because i had an article link, but long story short there are more probable factors than lignin eating bacteria had not evolved. In fact that’s not even proven; evidence points to their being lignin decomposers. A more likely explanation is the current environment at the time
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS TREE?: hopefully not, because this is a lepidodendron tree, and if you see this tree, you have fallen into a time rip. REMAIN CALM
🎅🎅🎅🐡🐡🐱🐱
@@fidelaabellano6200 real
👹👍🌴🦖
Really??? No way??!? stfu if you see a T-rex clapping yo cheeks you should panic 😲 🫨 🫢 😮 😲
Unfunny ._.
It’s scary that what took millions of years to make, us humans have been able to dig up in just a couple years
and burn so easily
bro we will slip into stone age if "green way of life" will turn out to be a scam
What are you talking about? We've been mining coal for centuries. The middle east has been known for it's "black gold" since forever. It's not just "a couple years", humans have been resourceful since we've ever been human.
@@Undomaranel true but when we compare how long humans have been alive for with how long life has been around for that is still very little time when compared to how long the coal has been formed for
@@Undomaranel he means that it's able to be mined for such a short time
I'm also pretty sure that the reason they didn't just decompose is because trees were a pretty new thing, so micro organisms and what not didn't know how to break them down.
Reply if I'm wrong or missing something
No, youre right, its the main reason why coal/fosisl fuels are non-renewable.
@@Sprt1337 The Carboniferous was also about 60 million year long. So burning it in a few decades may have some side effects
Fun fact that is often left out:
Trees and the like that die today will not form fossil fuels, so no it is not renewable. They could form fossil fuels back then because the organisms that decompose organic matter today did not yet exist 300 million years ago, which caused the dead trees and other organisms to barely decompose and just stack on top of eachother and form fossil fuels as seen in the video.
Other fun fact: The closest living relatives of lepidendron trees are (currently thought to be) cute little mosses (lycopods) like hornmosses or clubmosses!
Just scientists guessing and explaining it away with insane timeframes. They have no clue what was happening on earth 300 million years ago.
@@Tacomuch it is a guess but an educated one but there are multiple people who interpret the data differently so thats how they get away with changing narratives.
You can make trees into charcoal
@@wouterthemanify you can even turn them into gas to be used for electricity, but the point is that the natrual fossil fuel reserves will not replenish
@@Tacomuchwell, you certainly seem to be an expert! How can i refute your wizdumb?
One key point is that nothing had evolved to breakdown lignin a major component of trees so the trunks would just pile uo over hundreds of thousands of years instead of being decomposed like they would be now. Im not sure if this was bc fungi hadn't evolved or if fungi hadn't evolved to breakdown lignin
how did the trees access the soil and grow roots over log stacks
Fungi had definitely already evolved by this point, so I imagine they just weren't yet able to break down lignin.
@@prometheus5770 good question, they're will always be areas with bare soil that seed can take hold in but I'm not sure. I'm getting this from an episode of Cosmos lol
it's like the 4th comment about it
not to disregard yours, though there may be a longer discussion in the one posted about 4 months ago
Beautiful voice premise and art style!
Ah, so this is where pilotredsun's been up to
"and died, another that grew and died, and another that grew and died."
*Me and the birds start playing*
It also has a meme called you have rip into the fabric of time the meme say that the trees are dangerous
This may seem cool but this also means that we are limited on coal, this is because the lepidodedron tree along with its relatives are no extinct
Robert Krulwich is the most likable radio announcer
Big lez animation vibes
The title made me mistake this for a TF2 short
So coal is actually just old dead tree, which just explained to me how charcoal works.
Holy shit. I actually just had a revelation
And between the layers of coal, is natural gas.
Well you would've found out before middle school.
You forgot to mention the fact that the only reason that much decaying plant matter was able to build up in the first place was because there were no animals or insects on the planet at that time that ate decaying plant matter.
And we're burning through our limited supply. Some estimates say we only have 47yrs left 😅
If I remember correctly, nothing was able to digest tsellulose yet, so after dying the tree was just lying around
If you see this tree you are already dead 🎅🎅🐱
its all fun and games until you see one in today's time
I see many comments like this, and I don't get the reference... Explain pls?
@@TheThingoftheSkythere’s some strange joke/meme about seeing this type of tree which means you fell into a rip in space time
Rip my brothers
*IF YOU SEE THIS TREE STAY CALM*
🎅🎅🎅🐡
and there were no microbes or other decomposers around yet to fully break them down, so they collected :)
Love this animation
"Timmy,where are you? It's been 50 minutes already."
This vid was stuck in a fabric of time😭🙏
I could watch this ALL DAY
fungi, worms, termite: bruh
There wasn't yet the ability to decompose wood material yet. Had to evolve first, and that took some time.
@@romanski5811 so they were preserve on the ground like that then buried somehow? Cool, I never thought of it
those weren't around yet, and the species nowadays that are closest to those didn't have the ability to consume fibers
I wonder if aliens visited our planet, would they be horrified at our burning of coal for power? Think about it, coal is the result of a special circumstance where dead tree material could accumulate without decomposition by microorganisms. Sure, coal is considered abundant, compared to other elements that we use daily, such as iron, aluminium and so on, and so we take it for granted. But the ores these metals come from can happen pretty easily and naturally. What if the way coal is made happened by sheer coincidence, such that Earth is one of the few life-sustaining planets to even have coal, among the possible thousands or even millions of alien homeworlds?
You're very interesting
I love the way this was drawn
Here in the Philippines we don't use fossil coal anymore we use hydropower plant and windmills for electricity it's more environmentally friendly and we starting to use solar power plant also we don't use nuclear power plant
no we dont.
base load is still coal, powered by plants managed by SMC Global Power (Sual, Limay, Mariveles, to name a few) and Aboitiz Power
you cant replace fossil fuels with renewable, as the renewables are too inconsistent and fluctuating to serve as base load, not to mention the low power generating capacity (MW).
base load is either coal or nuclear, no in between.
Who told you that😂
Yes but actually no.
There's still alot of coal usage in the Philippines
Do some research dude..
We're only starting to replace coal with other sustainable energy sources we still have a long time before we can fully phase out coal from our power plants...
Also windmills are pretty bad for the environment, solar panels and nuclear is better
Suuuure
Light switch was flipped off and lights turned on...
In some eastern countries thats how you turn switch on
I think you're from the west.
This is such an amazing animation
ancient sunshine is such a beautiful way to think of it 🌞🖤
Does this has full version?
You can has the full version of deez nutz
wow
"Who died to light up this house"
Damn, with the music too. Sounds like a sacrifice made...
I think coal is the real non-renewable resources.
Wished we had this when I was in school. This is much more intriguing and easy to understand.
Weird school then.
I had this in school
So the carbon in coal was originally from the atmosphere. And burning coal just puts back what was originally in the air.
technically yes but that would still change up the climate that nearly all life is adapted to currently,
the global warming would still kill alot of creatures and ecosystems;
just because it was once in the atmosphere doesn't mean everything would be fine if it was in the atmosphere.
Organisms back then: "wood? How do i eat this shit?"
Some fungi 60 million years later: "ok, hear me out..."
Very cool. Great video and explanation
🎅🎅🐡
@IdkSterling
Coal: even in death Im still being served, for the Emperor!!!!
It’s actually pretty common to find imprints of ferns and other plants in coal
“Fossil fuel” is a deceptive misnomer.
Why? Im pretty sure they are made from fossilised remains of plants and animals which for plant became pre carbon aka coal.
@@abhinava5149 For example, NO fossils are found greater than about 16k ft below the surface of the earth. We mine petroleum 30k ft and below. It’s a mineral and the second most abundant liquid on the planet behind water. Look for a video called _Fletcher Prouty Explains Invention and Use of Term "Fossil Fuels_
Good luck on your search for the truth. And remember, Google manipulates their search results.
@@abhinava5149 I tried to explain but my comment got deleted. If you want to know the truth, find a video called: Fletcher Prouty Explains Invention and Use of Term "Fossil Fuels"
Fossils aren't just from dinosaurs, you know that, right..?
I made three comments to clarify but youtub won’t let me.
The religions folk thinking Noah's flood actually happened is hilarious at best and saddening at worst. Can yall explain how we descended from just 8 people without having genetic problems? What about the cultures that lived through when the flood supposedly happened? We also would not have fresh water fish if the flood happened. These are but a few of the flaws.
Edit: I know this has nothing to do with the video,
but witness the Creationists in the comments. I made this comment for them. I felt that I had something to say. That's it.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but how does this relate to the video? And why are you starting an argument.
Didn’t a more localized flood happen in the Mesopotamia that pretty much wiped out the middle east?
Irrelevant but I agree
Funny, since archeologists have literally discovered the footprint of a vessel, the exact measurements of the ark, in the exact place mentioned in the bible
@@cheyno237no. Get back to reality quit just believing whatever you want
A misconception is that coal and oil come from dinosaurs when instead it came from an earlier period in Earth's history
Nobody mentioned the Lepidodendron tree meme and I hope nobody will mention that
Yawn 😮💨 boring tree 😊
Can it play paladins though
@@geegoflex6762what💀
If you don't like it then why are you here
You missed one important thing, that the plants can not decay because there is no presence of bacteria to brake down the plants.😮😮😮😮 thats why they turned to coal.
This only happened because there was nothing on the earth to eat the wood. So for about 50 million years they kept piling on eachother and now we got coal
In theory
It's proven. 😑
In theory
@Gerasimos_slava Nah....its pretty well established scientific fact.
From Geology, to archeology, to Chemistry.
@@superbananas7792I’d agree with you but half of what was confirmed science a decade ago has been changed. So just because a group of ppl agree to be the first to figure X out doesn’t mean it’s right.
@@Smartness_itself No it's absolutely not
That's so coal.
Bro sounds like Squat DeTree Tyson 💀
Jurassic park narrator “goooooinnggg alll the wayyy back to the juraaasic perooooiidddddd”
This is why dinosaurs had such long necks. To wade through all of the layers of dead plants.
I hate how people call fossil fuels dead dinosaurs. The closest to it is essentially fossilized compost
Alright, what's funnier, to say dinosaur toys are made out of liquified compost, or that they're made out of melted dinosaur?
Why are there bigger reserves of fossil fuels on a Saturn moon than on earth if no fossils ever existed there?
The animation in this really adds to it imo, it’s nice to look at
I love the animation and music!
Have y’all seen the meme going around about this tree the tree the shorts was talking about?
I love how we artificially can make diamonds for fashion but we can't press organic matter to coal for power
We "can" but it would take more energy than it would give, so it's a waste of energy resources. Making a diamond is also a waste of energy, but no one is saying it's energy efficient so the motivation is money, not fuel.
Thanks alot camera man for entering a wormhole to 300 million year in the past!
And then redrawing the whole thing as an animation!
Beautiful. The way life is made and form is like a poem.
Finally, FNF lore
hey its me!!
I did not know Robert Krulwich was on UA-cam
I think they stole this audio…
Please keep on i love your style.
Theres nothing we can do in the backround
Bad video. You missed the most important part.
First trees who turned into our fossil fuels belonged to an era that did not have bacteria that would decompose them. So they were able to pile up.
When bacteria evolved to eat them up, that era ended and no more fossil fuels formed.
i miss this guy
Remember Lepidodendron? This is them now 🔥
I actually meant if u see this tree u have fallen into a rip in the fabric of space and time and u have to WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP.
I hope that one day after I die I can be as useful as coal.
Simple yet amazing animations
I just broke the fabric of time!
Another important thing is that the decomposers we have today didn't evolve yet, so it was easier for the carbon to be sequestered. Now decomposers break down much of the dead trees and liberate the carbon once more into the atmosphere.
Who animated this? It looks really familiar.
So trees turned into coal which turns into diamonds?!
I'm liking your channel. Well done.
Imagine us going to other planets only to find out that coal is not only finite and won't form ever again but also earth is the only place in the universe that has it.
That's an interesting idea lol
That's kinda coal
What's even more mind boggling to think about, is that those buildings themselves are actually made of dead marine life 🐚
(One of the materials used in cement is limestone, which is formed from marine fossils and mud, which turned into rock)
So when i see coal im falling into a fabric time
Nah
*REMAIN CALM*
🤭