Welcome to the geology room of the coal mining museum.

Here we will dive into a fascinating history : the coal formation.

Be ready to discover the mysteries hidden under the surface of the Earth !

Let’s start with these 3 remarkable fossils which tell us about a distant era, the Carboniferous Age.

First Stop : the tree fern trunk

Imagine yourself going back in time to 300 million years ago. These ferns grew in lush forests, forming massive trees reaching 30 metres high. Their wood is now here, fossilised, bearing witness of the biodiversity of this period.

Second stop : the fern leaf prints

Beside the fossilised trunk, you can see some fern leaf prints, preserved in stone. Because fossils are either simple prints, either whole bodies that turn into rock.

Third stop : the stems of calamites

Further on, you’ll see some stems of calamites, bamboo-like plants, that proliferated in the marshes of the time.

The Carboniferous age

The Carboniferous age, and its big forests, is a geologic era when conditions were ideal for the formation of coal, hence the name of this period.

If you want to learn more about the coal formation process, you can watch the TV before going on.