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Anthracite, also known as hard coal and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic lustre. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the highest ranking of coals.
Anthracite and bituminous coal were formed in the eastern and western regions of Pennsylvania in the Carboniferous Geological Period. [7] The Pennsylvania Anthracite Region is in the Valley and Ridge Province of the Appalachian Mountains, with the coal located in the folded and faulted terrain of the Province.
The Llewellyn is defined as a gray, fine- to coarse-grained sandstone, siltstone, shale, conglomerate, and anthracite coal in repetitive sequences. Although gray (light to dark) is the dominant color, other colors described include: buff, dark to light brown, and black. [2] It contains the worlds thickest anthracite coal bed, the Mammoth vein. [3]
In 1810, 176,000 short tons of bituminous coal, and 2,000 tons of anthracite coal, were mined in the United States. American coal mining grew rapidly in the early 1820s, doubling or tripling every decade. Anthracite mining overtook bituminous coal mining in the 1840s; from 1843 through 1868, more anthracite was mined than bituminous coal.
Large-scale coal mining and its accompanying industry and railroads have long been abandoned. Unlike the southern and middle anthracite fields, the anthracite valley has been recently glaciated repeatedly. This action has left many talus slopes at the base of Moosic Mountains, and the soils often contain large boulders that make excavation ...
A grade between bituminous coal and anthracite was once known as "steam coal" as it was widely used as a fuel for steam locomotives. In this specialized use, it is sometimes known as "sea coal" in the United States. [72] Small "steam coal", also called dry small steam nuts (DSSN), was used as a fuel for domestic water heating.
The Pottsville Formation consists of a gray conglomerate, fine to coarse grained sandstone, and is known to contain limestone, siltstone and shale, as well as anthracite and bituminous coal. [4] [5] It is considered a classic orogenic molasse. [6] The formation was first described from a railroad cut south of Pottsville, Pennsylvania. [4]
In Little Compton and Tiverton, the coal seam had turned to graphite, leading to a small scale effort to mine graphite. Mid-size coal mines also operated in Cranston and Pawtucket through the 1930s. Heat and pressure made the anthracite coal in Rhode Island graphite rich and difficult to burn. [8]