Fossil fuel embedded energy is still photosynthetic in origin. Terrestrial plants, on the other hand, tended to form coal and methane. Many of the coal fields date to the Carboniferous period of Earth's history. Terrestrial plants also form type III kerogen, a source of natural gas. There is a wide range of organic, or hydrocarbon, compounds in any given fuel mixture. The specific mixture of hydrocarbons gives a fuel its characteristic properties, such as boiling point, melting point, density, viscosity, etc. Some fuels like natural gas, for instance, contain only very low boiling, gaseous components. Others such as gasoline or diesel contain
Evolutionary history of plants also formed shallow rooting systems during the Famennian. The rhizophores of the lycopods provide a slightly different approach to rooting. They were equivalent to stems, with organs equivalent to leaves performing the role of rootlets. A similar construction is observed in the extant lycopod "Isoetes", and this appears to be evidence that roots evolved independently at least twice, in the lycophytes and other plants, a proposition supported by studies showing that roots are initiated and their growth promoted by different mechanisms in lycophytes and euphyllophytes. A vascular system is indispensable to rooted plants, as non-photosynthesising roots need a supply of