chapter SIX( coal & petrolume)

Chapter - six
Geology of Coal Deposit

What is Coal?
• Coal is an organic sedimentary rock that forms from
the accumulation and preservation of plant materials,
usually in a swamp environment.
• Coal is a combustible rock and, along with oil and
natural gas, it is one of the three most important fossil
fuels.
• Coal has a wide range of uses; the most important use
is for the generation of electricity.
How Does Coal Form?
• Coal forms from the accumulation of plant debris, usually in
a swamp environment.
• When a plant dies and falls into the swamp, the standing
water of the swamp protects it from decay.
• Swamp waters are usually deficient in oxygen, which would
react with the plant debris and cause it to decay.
• This lack of oxygen allows the plant debris to persist.
• In addition, insects and other organisms that might consume
the plant debris on land do not survive well under water in
an oxygen-deficient environment.
• To form the thick layer of plant debris required to
produce a coal seam, the rate of plant debris
accumulation must be greater than the rate of decay.
• Once a thick layer of plant debris is formed, it must be
buried by sediments such as mud or sand.
• These are typically washed into the swamp by a
flooding river.
• The weight of these materials compacts the plant
debris and aids in its transformation into coal.
• About ten feet of plant debris will compact into just
one foot of coal.
• Plant debris accumulates very slowly. So, accumulating ten
feet of plant debris will take a long time.
• The fifty feet of plant debris needed to make a five-foot thick
coal seam would require thousands of years to accumulate.
• During that long time, the water level of the swamp must
remain stable.
• If the water becomes too deep, the plants of the swamp will
drown, and if the water cover is not maintained the plant
debris will decay.
• To form a coal seam, the ideal conditions of perfect water
depth must be maintained for a very long time
Coal-Forming Environments:
• A generalized diagram of a swamp, showing how water
depth, preservation conditions, plant types, and plant
productivity can vary in different parts of the swamp.
• These variations will yield different types of coal.
• For a coal seam to form, perfect conditions of plant
debris accumulation and perfect conditions of
subsidence must occur on a landscape that
maintains this perfect balance for a very long time.
• It is easy to understand why the conditions for
forming coal have occurred only a small number of
times throughout Earth's history.
• The formation of a coal requires the coincidence of
highly improbable events.
What is Coal "Rank"?
• Plant debris is a fragile material compared to the mineral
materials that make up other rocks.
• As plant debris is exposed to the heat and pressure of burial, it
changes in composition and properties.
• The "rank" of a coal is a measure of how much change has
occurred.
• Sometimes the term "organic metamorphism" is used for this
change.
• Based upon composition and properties, coals are assigned to
a rank progression that corresponds to their level of organic
metamorphism.
• The basic rank progression is summarized in the table here.
1. Peat is actually not a true coal and consists of unconsolidated, semi-
carbonized plant remains with high moisture content.
2. Lignite or brown coals
• `are the lowest ranked coal
• are brown to brownish black that
• have high moisture content commonly retain many of the structures of the
original woody plant fragments.
3. Bituminous coals
• are hard, black coals that
• contain fewer volatiles and less moisture than lignite and
• have a higher carbon content.
4. Sub-bituminous coals
• have properties intermediate between those of lignite and bituminous
coal.
5. Anthracite
• is a hard, black, dense coal commonly containing >90% carbon.
• It is a bright, shiny rock that breaks with conchoidal fracture, such as the
fractures in broken glass.
Peat Lignite Bituminous
Sub-Bituminous Anthracite
• Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from ancient
vegetation which has been consolidated between other rock strata
and transformed by the combined effects of microbial action,
pressure and heat over a considerable time period.
• This process is commonly called ‘coalification’. Coal occurs as layers
or seams, ranging in thickness from millimetres to many tens of
metres.
• It is composed mostly of carbon (50–98 per cent), hydrogen (3–13
per cent) and oxygen, and smaller amounts of nitrogen, sulphur and
other elements.
• It also contains water and particles of other inorganic matter.
• When burnt, coal releases energy as heat which has a variety of
uses.
Mining
• Coal is mined by both surface or ‘opencut’ (or opencast) and
underground or ‘deep’ mining methods, depending on the local
geology of the deposit.
• Underground mining currently accounts for about 60 per cent of
world coal production but around 80 per cent of Australia’s coal is
produced from opencut mines.
• Opencut mining is only economic when the coal seam(s) is near the
sur face.
• It has the advantage of lower mining costs and it generally
recovers a higher proportion of the coal deposit than underground
mining, as most seams present are exploited (90 per cent or more
of the coal can typically be recovered).
What are the Uses of Coal?
• Heat from the burning coal is used to produce steam, which turns a
generator to produce electricity.
• Coal has many other uses.
• It is used as a source of heat for manufacturing processes. For example,
bricks and cement are produced in kilns heated by the combustion of a
jet of powdered coal.
• Coal is also used as a power source for factories.
• There it is used to heat steam, and the steam is used to drive
mechanical devices.
• A few decades ago most coal was used for space heating. Some coal is
still used that way, but other fuels and coal-produced electricity are
now used instead.
• Coke production remains an important use of coal.
• Coke is produced by heating coal under controlled conditions in the absence of
air.
• This drives off some of the volatile materials and concentrates the carbon
content.
• Coke is then used as a high-carbon fuel for metal processing and other uses
where an especially hot-burning flame is needed.
• Coal is also used in manufacturing.
• If coal is heated the gases, tars, and residues produced can be used in a number of
manufacturing processes.
• Plastics, roofing, linoleum, synthetic rubber, insecticides, paint products,
medicines, solvents, and synthetic fibers all include some coal-derived compounds.
• Coal can also be converted into liquid and gaseous fuels; however, these uses of
coal are mainly experimental and done on a small scale.

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Chapter - six

Geology of Coal Deposit

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