Geology of Coal Fires: Case Studies from Around the World 2008

Reviews in Engineering Geology, volume 18
Edited by Glenn B. Stracher
19 papers

Coal fires are preserved globally in the rock record as burnt and volume-reduced coal seams and by pyrometamorphic rocks, explosion breccias, clinker, gas-vent-mineral assemblages, fire-induced faulting, ground fissures, slump blocks, and sinkholes. Coal fires are responsible for coronary and respiratory diseases and fatalities in humans, as well as arsenic and fluorine poisoning. Their heat energy, toxic fumes, and solid by-products of combustion destroy floral and faunal habitats while polluting the air, water, and soil. This exciting volume includes chapters devoted to spontaneous combustion and greenhouse gases, gas-vent mineralogy and petrology, paralavas and combustion metamorphic rocks, geochronology and landforms, magnetic signatures and geophysical modeling, remote sensing detection and fire-depth estimation of concealed fires, and coal-fires and public policy.

Wetlands through Time (SPE 399) 2006
Edited by Stephen F. Greb and William A. DiMichele
14 papers

Coal Systems Analyses (SPE 387)
2005
Edited by Peter D. Warwick
6 papers

Coal is an important and required energy source for today’s world. Current rates of world coal consumption are projected to continue at approximately the same (or greater) levels well into the twenty-first century. This collection of papers provides an introduction to the concept of coal systems analysis and contains examples of how coal systems analysis can be used to understand, characterize, and evaluate coal and coal gas resources. Coal systems analysis incorporates the various disciplines of coal geology to provide a complete characterization of the resource.

Elements of Pennsylvanian Stratigraphy-Central Appalachian Basin (SPE 294)
1994
Edited by Charles L. Rice
9 papers

The chapters in this volume concern the Pennsylvanian stratigraphy of the central Appalachian basin. Most of the chapters in this volume deal with the contentious subject of correlation of Pennsylvanian units. There is a glossary of Pennsylvanian stratigraphic names. Although much has been learned from recent studies of depositional models, not the least is that we need a better knowledge of physical stratigraphy. Papers in this volume hope to improve the Pennsylvanian stratigraphic framework through detailed geologic mapping supported by focused biostratigraphic investigations and by analyses of much drillhole data.

Modern and Ancient Coal-forming Environments (SPE 286)
1993
Edited by James C. Cobb and C. Blaine Cecil
12 papers

For more than 50 years, coal geology has relied heavily on stratigraphic and sedimentologic studies for the interpretation of the environments of coal formation. Although some attempts have been made to model coal formation on the basis of modern peat deposits, most of these deposits have not had the thickness, lateral extent, or purity necessary to product a coal bed of commercial interest. Therefore, a search for more appropriate analogs has been accelerated over the past decade. This volume presents observations, data, and interpretations on analogs of coal formation in equatorial Indonesia that may prove to be important for improving models that can be used to predict the occurrence and quality of coal deposits.

Memoirs

Palynological Correlation of Major Pennsylvanian (Middle and Upper Carboniferous) Chronostratigraphic Boundaries in the Illinois and other Coal Basins (MEM 188)
1996

By Russel A. Peppers
This memoir uses published reports and palynological analyses to correlate major chronostratigraphic boundaries in the Pennsylvanian System in the Illinois basin, the Western Interior coal province, and the Appalachian coal region, as well as the Middle and Upper Carboniferous in Europe. These correlations are based on comparing the stratigraphic ranges of spore species and genera with significant changes in relative abundance of taxa in coal beds in the Carboniferous equatorial belt.