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It took a ten-meter layer of fallen rain forest to make just a one-meter seam of coal. When you consider the depth of all the seams in all the coalfields worked in Europe, from Britain through to northern France and Germany, Poland and Ukraine, the immense scale of Carboniferous forests becomes clear.
Coal fuelled one of the greatest transformations that Europe has ever seen. Its presence all across the continent was a vital component in making Europe the cradle of the Industrial Revolution and ultimately turned it into the economic powerhouse it is today. The ancient past can directly shape the present. Europe is now the most urbanized and industrialized continent on the globe, largely thanks to its position on the equator 300 million years ago.
When these steaming forests were at their peak, other events were already in motion that would banish them forever. Europe, still drifting north, had been rocked by another series of monumental collisions. And the result of the tectonic pileup was this, the supercontinent Pangea.
Around 213 million years ago, Europe was engulfed by a massive land. Now, far from the oceans, rain no longer fell. Under an unforgiving sun, the lush tropical forests disappeared and the continent was swallowed by sand.
The fossilized remains of these desert dunes now form much of the bedrock of the Eastern Europe. In the depths of a Russian winter, it's hard to imagine how hot and dry this place once was, let alone some of the creatures that roamed here, Dinosaurs, a new order on the move.
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words and expressions
seam :a stratum of ore or coal thick enough to be mined with profit矿层；煤层
powerhouse:an electrical generating station发电站
banish:To drive away; expel驱逐, 消除
engulf:To swallow up or overwhelm by or as if by overflowing and enclosing席卷；吞没
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