The information for the following story is from the following Internet site accessed 10/21/2002: http://www.gov.ns.ca/natr/meb/ic/ic25.htm

How Coal is Formed*

Let's go back in time...one hundred years, five hundred years, one thousand years...we're back 300 million years!

Where are we? We're in Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. What happened to the Scottish Highlands and the Cabot Trail? We are now in the Carboniferous Period. Some people call it the Coal Age. Now I'm beginning to understand why we're in Cape Breton. Cape Breton was the heart of the coal-mining industry.

The coal age was a long, long time ago – there's not a single human being on the earth yet, not even dinosaurs.

It's difficult to walk around this swampy, prehistoric forest among the strange trees, dense thickets, and large ferns. Lepidodendron trees grow tall in this ancient Nova Scotia. Lepidodendrons are strange looking trees with scale-like bark.

* To read more about coal mining, see Coal-mining in Pictou County in Our Ocean Playground manual.