Pennsylvania Coal William Penn was an important early colonist in Pennsylvania. The name Pennsylvania is Latin for Penn s woods. Although Phacops rana makes a fine state fossil for Pennsylvania, another choice could have been a plant. A prehistoric plant would represent the Pennsylvanian Period and its lush forests. These forests gave Pennsylvania the coal for which it is so famous.
Coal lies under about a third of Pennsylvania.
It is just the tip of an enormous Appalachian coal field that stretches south to Alabama.