Wingen: coal burning underground

Exploration · Permian

Wingen: coal burning underground

Plant remains → burial and coal formation → much later burning · process diagram

Imagined illustration of underground coal burning at Wingen, not a photograph, precise geological section or measured map of the current fire. Color emphasizes underground heat.

At Burning Mountain near Wingen, New South Wales, Australia, an underground coal seam burns slowly. The coal-bearing strata were deposited in the Permian; the fire and its fuel have different ages.