Coal. Origins and places in geology.

[Tank]

I have recently come across coal as in interesting subject https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal

Billy how does Coal fit into stratigrafy?

[billy rubin]

super useful.

its an indicator of terrestrial swamp environments and so can be correlated across ancient landscapes like an inorganic sediment. plus when its found in cyclothems it indicates periodic transgression/regression of shallow seas.

if the thwaites glacier lets loose, we ll get to see transgression unlike anything since the end of the pleistocene. 10 feet of sea level rise, they say. goodbye mar a lago. and lots more.

around here the ancient rock layers are super flat, never really being distorted. so its mined with longwall tools, and the same coal seams can be reliably traced across  long distances.

the soft bituminous coal around here is a sedimentary roock. burns with a yellow smoky flame and smells like burning tires. the hard coal is metamorphic anthracite and doesnt smell. burns with a hot blue flame and no smoke.

we heated our house with soft coal for years, until the ancient shovel furnace in the cellar sprung s fata leak. its an excellent heat source but spread coal ash all over the snow outside.

no specific  fossils that i know of in it. i suspect theyre all too degraded. but there are beautiful brachiopods from the carboniferous that are partially replaced with pyrite, and that sulphur often comes from coal.

[billy rubin]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pyrite+brachiopod&iax=images&ia=images

[Tank]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pyrite+brachiopod&iax=images&ia=images

Wow!

[billy rubin]

brachiopods are just amazing anyway. theres a pennsylvanian formation in arizona where you can just crawl on your belly across the dirt and pick these things up like pebbles every few inches. fenestrate and others in ther, along with crinoids and ammonioids

theyre still around. filter feeders with a lophophore. th eshells open up top to bottom, like a steamer trunk, instead of l;efty righty like a modern bivalve.

how cool are these ? been around for bazillions of centuries



ive got a basket of fossils. ill see if i can find any. the cats spread em around

[Tank]

I'm loving this.