Like China’s buried army of the dead, a dark secret is hidden under the barren rocky surface of Mongolia’s south Gobi desert. Two hundred fifty million years ago, as the world’s climate began to spin out of control into the earth’s greatest mass extinction, a hundred-mile long swamp laid down one of the world’s largest deposits of coal. Today, the south Gobi, “the Saudi Arabia of Coal” is being developed to feed China’s insatiable appetite for energy. The mines are bringing wealth to Mongolia, but the desert is expanding. Traditional nomads are watching their way of life go up in clouds of dust. China’s full exploitation of these massive coal seams (and other fossil fuels) threatens to unearth the ghosts of the Permian extinction. To read the full article, click here: The Dark Secret of the South Gobi