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Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms (2013)

www.smithsonianmag.com Essays & writing News reports Mathematics & science Candidate
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Resurfaced independently across 4 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
4
submitters
4
observed span
2018–2023
peak thread · 245 comments
333 pts
latest 20+ return · 2023-04-26
333 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

I think it’s wild and deeply inspiring to imagine how the surface of the earth had radically different forms over billions of years. Huge landscapes of unrotted dead plants. Then massive landscapes of fungus and decomposing bacteria breaking that down into dirt. And on and on. I think it is wise to understand that earth has been through many eras and is not as homeostatic as our narrowly imagined “natural” state we seek today. And I am not trying to…

When I read the title, I immediately thought of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864). The flora are described as consisting of "...surrounded by a rocky coastline covered in petrified trees and giant mushrooms".

aktau·253-point thread·

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
595

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
346

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission