Making Coal

Yesterday we learned that the Mount St. Helens catastrophe washed a million trees into a nearby lake. Many trees sank upright! Others floated in the water. As they rubbed against each other, their bark sank to the bottom of the lake. And the bark—mixed with the volcanic sediments—produced peat. This peat looked exactly like the peat we find in some coal beds. And it only took five years to form.

Geologists assume it takes hundreds of thousands of years to form these beds. But Mount St. Helens reminds us that such is not the case. Peat and coal beds did not form from slow and gradual growth in a swamp, but from Noah’s catastrophic flood.

Dig Deeper

• Lasting Lessons from Mount St. Helens
• Three Decades Since Eruption of Mount St. Helens