I have just read an amusing book by Bill Bryson called A walk in the woods, about the Appalachian trail. In one of the chapters he writes about a derelict town in Pennsylvania called Centralia.
Pennsylvania was like South Yorkshire, a huge coalfield, but on a grand scale. In 1962 a fire in a rubbish tip, spread underground to the coal seams below and is still burning, The Inhabitants were moved out in he 1980's, although smoke and steam had beed rising from the gound for nearly twenty years, after ground temperatures measured 90 degrees, roads were melting and holes were appearing in peoples gardens, and a petrol station tanks registered 172 F. With the amount of coal still down there, it is thought that the fire may burn itself out anywhere between 250---1000 years. That's an awful lot of carbon emissions.
Pennsylvania was like South Yorkshire, a huge coalfield, but on a grand scale. In 1962 a fire in a rubbish tip, spread underground to the coal seams below and is still burning, The Inhabitants were moved out in he 1980's, although smoke and steam had beed rising from the gound for nearly twenty years, after ground temperatures measured 90 degrees, roads were melting and holes were appearing in peoples gardens, and a petrol station tanks registered 172 F. With the amount of coal still down there, it is thought that the fire may burn itself out anywhere between 250---1000 years. That's an awful lot of carbon emissions.
