Hold on, though; we're talking about rocks here, right? How does a rock like coal relate to living creatures? When organisms die under conditions that inhibit decay, they can form a material known as peat, which is the first step in coal formation. When peat becomes buried under sediment and exposed to intense heat and pressure, it can eventually form coal. Here in central Appalachia, most of our coal comes from the transformed remnants of untold dead organisms - mostly plants - that were submerged in ancient bogs and swamps that occurred here millions of years ago, when our region was not made of mountains but a vast lowlands known as the Appalachian Basin. The coal and other rocks formed from this basin eventually became uplifted into our modern-day mountains when our continental plate collided with Africa some 300 million years ago. High Knob, in fact, sits nearly on top of the edge of these vast coal deposits, which spread out across the Plateau to the west. You can acutally see this transition for yourself in terms of where humans have and have not mined across the view in front of you - do you see any coal mines to the south or east? 

A major topic of discussion in Southwest Virginia and beyond at the present time is based around what to do with the abandoned minelands such as those seen from the Knob. If left unreclaimed, the rocks exposed by these mines can often leach acidic drainage containing harmful metals and other pollutants into surrounding streams, degrading water quality for wildlife and humans alike. In addition, invasive (non-native) plants used to revegetate many mines outcompete and choke out native forest cover, reducing wildlife habitat and altering the ecological composition of the Appalachian Plateau. Many efforts are underway in our region to construct remediation habitats to control water pollution at these sites and even to reforest abandoned mines with native, Appalachian hardwoods in hopes that these sites can be returned to as close of a natural trajectory as possible.