There’s a theory that most coal comes from a period after plants evolved lignin (the substance that makes wood woody) but before bacteria and fungi evolved the enzymes to break lignin down. Perhaps something similar will happen with plastic.
Interesting. Their alternative hypothesis from the abstract:
> Rather than a consequence of a temporal decoupling of evolutionary innovations between fungi and plants, Paleozoic coal abundance was likely the result of a unique combination of everwet tropical conditions and extensive depositional systems during the assembly of Pangea.
"The occurrence of these substantial coal deposits 200 million years after the undisputed evolution of wood-rotting fungi sharply conflicts with the evolutionary lag model" seems pretty clear, as does the evidence of fungal decay in deposited coal.
No; "Devonian-to-Permian woods infiltrated with fungi and possessing damage consistent with white rot decay or other forms of fungal degradation of lignified tissue" means the original theory simply doesn't work.
