Chapter 1. Introduction to Applied Coal Petrology
1.1. Fundamental Concepts
Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock, composed essentially of lithified plant debris. The plant debris was originally deposited in a swampy depositional environment to form a soft, spongy sediment called peat. However, physical and chemical processes brought about by compaction and elevated temperatures with prolonged burial at depths of up to several kilometers and over periods of up to several hundred million years then changed the peat into coal through a process referred to as coalification or rank advance.
The properties of a given coal can be related to three independent geological parameters, each of which is determined by some aspect of the coal's origin. ...
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