What turns dead trees black?

[Joben]

I took a walk in the woods yesterday, and i found a very very large dead tree. It was incredibly dramatic, hollowed out totally, large enough I could have sat inside if comfortably. Huge broken limbs branching off, each the size of the surrounding trees. I need to go back with my camera. Judging from the area I would guess it to have been a maple. There was no surviving bark...

Much of it was black inside. Not the normal darkened look of rotting wood. More like a coating. Often one side of a shattered piece would be weathered brown, the other side sooty black. You could chip it and find normal old wood underneath.

Lighting strike victim?
Some kind of fungus?

 

[Evolute]

Fire?

 

[jca21]

i've seen trees over here which seem like the thing was hollowed from the inside out and very black.

the park ranger explained that it was due to a lightning strike. so thats the only answer i can give ya lol.

 

[stingray4540]

Most likely lightning, there are lot's of trees like that in the redwood parks I frequent. Of course the redwoods are much larger, and you could probably live comfortably in one of the hollowed out lightning victims.

Sorry for the crappy old photo, but this is the only one I can find right now, of one of the hollowed out trees. They also get much bigger, but this one is probably the size of a small bedroom inside:

 

[markv]

both fungus and lightening

lightening kills the tree
fungus starts its shift and really goes to work.

brown punky wood indicates slow rot.

very cool
buzz

 

[lambertiana]

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but around here it is usually caused by fire.

 

[Munky88]

Lightning strikes and ignites the core of the tree because electricity travels down damp dense inside instead of the outside. tree burns inside out.
the moisture inside can also rapidly expand from heat and water vapor and the tree explodes like a banana peel. Pretty cool thing to find.
I've also heard of them exploding like grenades, So I guess it depends on the kind of tree.