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Carboniferous Coal Forests

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During the Carboniferous period, forests of giant lycophytes and horsetails accumulated as undecomposed plant matter, later compressed over geologic time into coal.

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Today's coal seams trace their carbon to that ancient seedless-vascular-plant biomass, buried before decomposition could break it down.

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This period's plant dominance predates seed plants — the giant lycophytes forming these forests were seedless vascular plants, not gymnosperms.