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 The
Iowa Coal Swamp diorama
takes you to a geologic period 300 million years ago called the Pennsylvanian
period. Iowa existed as a lush tropical swamp on the shores of a shallow
sea. The club mosses, or "scale trees," and ferns grew quickly,
and when they died the vegetation accumulated more quickly than it decayed.
Heat, pressure and the passage of millions of years converted the peat
to coal.
Coal mining
was a major industry in Iowa until the 1920's when railroads switched
to diesel fuel. Work in the mines attracted immigrants from England,
Wales, Sweden, Croatia, Italy and many other countries to Iowa.
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