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A coal mine mantrip at Lackawanna Coal Mine in Scranton, Pennsylvania Coal miners exiting a winder cage at a mine near Richlands, Virginia in 1974 Surface coal mining in Wyoming, U.S. A coal mine in Frameries, Belgium. Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine.
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, primarily from underground mines east of the Mississippi was the nation's primary fuel source until the early 1950s. Surface (strip) and mountaintop removal mining overtook underground mines in the 1970s.
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams.Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. [1]
US Annual coal production by coal rank. Trends in surface versus underground mining of coal in the US Bowman Company coal mine, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, 1904.. The history of coal mining in the United States starts with the first commercial use in 1701, within the Manakin-Sabot area of Richmond, Virginia. [1]
Although some deep mining took place as early as the late Tudor period in North East England, and roughly the same time in the Stuart period along the Firth of Forth coast of Scotland, deep shaft mining in Britain began to develop extensively in the late 18th century, with rapid expansion throughout the 19th century and early 20th century when the industry peaked.
The U.S. Bureau of Mines was created in 1910 to investigate accidents, advise industry, conduct production and safety research, and teach courses in accident prevention, first aid, and mine rescue. The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Acts of 1969 and 1977 set further safety standards for the industry.
Coal mining regions are significant resource extraction industries in many parts of the world. They provide a large amount of the fossil fuel energy in the world economy.. The People's Republic of China is the largest producer of coal in the world, while Australia is the largest coal exporter. [1]