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Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. [3] [4] Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution.
The History of coal mining goes back thousands of years, with early mines documented in ancient China, the Roman Empire and other early historical economies. It became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, when it was primarily used to power steam engines, heat buildings and generate electricity.
Coal and Unionism: A History of the American Coal Miners' Unions (1939) McIntosh, Robert. Boys in the pits: Child labour in coal mines (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2000), Canadian mines; Palladino, Grace. Another Civil War : labor, capital, and the state in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania, 1840-68 (1990) online; Phelan, Craig.
US coal production increasingly comes from strip mines in the western United States, such as from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. [11] [128] Coal has come under continued price pressure from natural gas and renewable energy, which has resulted in a rapid decline of coal in the U.S. and several notable bankruptcies including ...
The name Carboniferous means "coal-bearing", from the Latin carbō ("coal") and ferō ("bear, carry"), and refers to the many coal beds formed globally during that time. [8] The first of the modern "system" names, it was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822, [9] based on a study of the British rock succession.
The landslide originated from a coal tip above the area, and one resident said the event reminded her of the Aberfan disaster. In 1966, 144 people - including 116 children - were killed when a ...
On Oct. 11, 2000, a spill from a Martin County Coal Corp. waste containment pond polluted more than 100 miles of creeks, streams and rivers running through Kentucky and West Virginia.
Despite these heat-driven transformations, the energy released in combustion is still photosynthetic in origin. [24] Terrestrial plants tended to form coal and methane. Many of the coal fields date to the Carboniferous period of Earth's history. Terrestrial plants also form type III kerogen, a source of natural gas.