Secrets of nature and earth. secrets of the formation of brown and black coal

It takes a long time to turn peat into coal. Layers of peat gradually accumulated in peat bogs, and overgrown with more and more plants from above. At depth, complex compounds found in decaying plants break down into ever simpler ones. They are partially dissolved and carried away by water, and some of them pass into a gaseous state, forming methane and carbon dioxide. Bacteria and various fungi that inhabit all swamps and peat bogs also play an important role in the formation of coal, as they contribute to the rapid decomposition of plant tissues. Over time, in the process of such changes, carbon begins to accumulate in peat, as the most stable substance. Over time, carbon in peat becomes more and more.

An important condition for the accumulation of carbon in peat is the absence of oxygen access. Otherwise, carbon, having combined with oxygen, would have turned into carbon dioxide and escaped. Peat layers that transform into coal are first isolated from the air and oxygen contained in it by the water that covers them, and from above by newly emerging layers of peat from a decaying layer of plants and new thickets growing on them.

Coal stages

The first stage is lignite, loose brown coal, most similar to peat, not of the most ancient origin. The remains of plants, especially wood, are clearly visible in it, since it takes longer to decompose. Lignite is formed in modern peat bogs of the middle zone, and consists of reeds, sedges, peat moss. The woody peat that forms in the subtropical zone, such as the swamps of Florida in the United States, is very similar to fossil lignite.

Brown coal is created with a stronger decomposition and change in plant residues. Its color is black or dark brown, wood remains are less common in it, and there are no plant remains at all, it is stronger than lignite. When burning, brown coal emits much more heat, since there are more carbon compounds in it. Over time, brown coal turns into bituminous coal, but not always. The transformation process occurs only if a layer of brown coal sinks into deeper layers of the earth's crust when mountain building occurs. To turn brown coal into hard coal or anthracite, you need a very high temperature of the earth's interior and great pressure.

In coal, the remains of plants and wood can only be found under a microscope, it is shiny, heavy and strong almost like a stone. Black and coal called anthracite contains the highest amount of carbon. This coal is valued above all, since when burned it gives the most heat.

Coal is a sedimentary rock that forms in the earth's seam. Coal is an excellent fuel. It is believed that this is the most ancient type of fuel used by our distant ancestors.

How coal is formed

For the formation of coal, a huge amount of plant matter is needed. And it is better if the plants accumulate in one place and do not have time to decompose completely. The ideal place for this is swamps. The water in them is poor in oxygen, which prevents the vital activity of bacteria.

Vegetation mass accumulates in swamps. Not having time to completely rot, it is compressed by the following soil deposits. This is how peat is obtained - the source material for coal. The next layers of soil, as it were, seal the peat in the ground. As a result, it is completely deprived of access to oxygen and water and turns into a coal seam. This process is lengthy. So, most of the modern reserves of coal were formed in the Paleozoic era, that is, more than 300 million years ago.

Characteristics and types of coal

(Brown coal)

The chemical composition of coal depends on its age.

The youngest species is brown coal. It lies at a depth of about 1 km. There is still a lot of water in it - about 43%. Contains a large amount of volatile substances. It ignites and burns well, but gives little heat.

Hard coal is a kind of "middling" in this classification. It occurs at depths up to 3 km. Since the pressure of the upper layers is greater, the water content in coal is less - about 12%, volatile substances - up to 32%, but carbon contains from 75% to 95%. It is also highly flammable, but burns better. And due to the small amount of moisture, it gives more heat.

Anthracite is an older breed. It occurs at depths of about 5 km. It has more carbon and almost no moisture. Anthracite is a solid fuel, it ignites poorly, but the specific heat of combustion is the highest - up to 7400 kcal / kg.

(Anthracite coal)

However, anthracite is not the final stage in the transformation of organic matter. When exposed to harsher conditions, coal transforms into shuntite. At higher temperatures, graphite is obtained. And when subjected to ultra-high pressure, coal turns into diamond. All these substances - from a plant to a diamond - are made of carbon, only the molecular structure is different.

In addition to the main "ingredients", the composition of coal often includes various "rocks". These are impurities that do not burn, but form slag. Contained in coal and sulfur, and its content is determined by the place of formation of coal. When burned, it reacts with oxygen and forms sulfuric acid. The less impurities in the composition of coal, the higher its grade is valued.

Coal deposit

The place of occurrence of coal is called a coal basin. Over 3.6 thousand coal basins are known in the world. Their area occupies about 15% of the earth's land area. The largest percentage of deposits of the world's coal reserves in the United States - 23%. In second place - Russia, 13%. China closes the top three leading countries - 11%. The largest coal deposits in the world are located in the USA. This is the Appalachian coal basin, whose reserves exceed 1600 billion tons.

In Russia, the largest coal basin is Kuznetsk, in the Kemerovo region. The reserves of Kuzbass amount to 640 billion tons.

The development of deposits in Yakutia (Elginskoye) and in Tyva (Elegestskoye) is promising.

Coal mining

Depending on the depth of the coal, either a closed mining method or an open one is used.

Closed, or underground mining method. For this method, mine shafts and adits are built. Mine shafts are built if the depth of coal is 45 meters or more. A horizontal tunnel leads from it - an adit.

There are 2 closed mining systems: room and pillar mining and longwall mining. The first system is less economical. It is used only in cases where the discovered layers are thick. The second system is much safer and more practical. It allows you to extract up to 80% of the rock and evenly deliver coal to the surface.

The open method is used when the coal is shallow. To begin with, an analysis of the hardness of the soil is carried out, the degree of soil weathering and the layering of the covering layer are ascertained. If the ground above the coal seams is soft, the use of bulldozers and scrapers is sufficient. If the upper layer is thick, then excavators and draglines are brought in. A thick layer of hard rock lying above the coal is blown up.

The use of coal

The area of ​​use of coal is simply huge.

Sulfur, vanadium, germanium, zinc, and lead are extracted from coal.

Coal itself is an excellent fuel.

It is used in metallurgy for iron smelting, in the production of iron, steel.

The ash obtained after burning coal is used in the production of building materials.

From coal, after its special processing, benzene and xylene are obtained, which are used in the production of varnishes, paints, solvents, and linoleum.

By liquefying coal, a first-class liquid fuel is obtained.

Coal is the raw material for producing graphite. As well as naphthalene and a number of other aromatic compounds.

As a result of the chemical processing of coal, more than 400 types of industrial products are currently obtained.

Officially, these are layers of biomass accumulation from forests and plants, coked under other layers. Or it was powerful ancient peat bogs (lower thickest layer).

This pattern of coal layers is ubiquitous:

Nazarovsky coal mine. Two thin layers close to the surface

The main layer with brown coal does not look like a random mass with petrified trunks of ancient trees chaotically laid. The reservoir has clear strata - many layers. That is, the official version with ancient trees is not suitable. And it is not suitable yet because of the high sulfur content in brown coal seams.

Table of content of some chemical elements in coals, peat, wood and oil.

In order not to think about the meaning of the table, I will write the conclusions from it.
1. Carbon. In wood, it is the least of the listed fuel sources. And it is not clear (if we take into account the traditional version of coal formation) why the amount of carbon increases with the accumulation of organic matter (wood or peat) in the layers. A contradiction that no one explains.
2. Nitrogen and oxygen. Nitrogen compounds are one of the building blocks of wood and vegetation. And why the amount of nitrogen decreased after the transformation of wood or peat into brown coal is again not clear. Again a contradiction.
3. Sulfur. In wood there is no amount sufficient for the accumulation of this chemical element. Even in peat, sulfur is negligible compared to the layers of brown and hard coal. Where does sulfur get into the layers? The only assumption is that there was sulfur in the layers from the very beginning. Mixed with organic? But somehow, the concentration of sulfur in coals coincides with the sulfur content in oil.

Usually sulfur is pyrite, sulfate and organic. As a rule, pyrite sulfur prevails. The sulfur contained in coals is usually in the form of magnesium, calcium and iron sulfates, iron pyrite (pyritic sulfur) and in the form of organic sulfur-containing compounds. Separately determine, as a rule, only sulfate and sulfide sulfur; organic is defined as the difference between the amount of total sulfur in coal and the sum of sulfate and sulfide sulfur.

Sulfur pyrite is an almost constant companion of coal and, moreover, sometimes in such quantity that it makes it unfit for consumption (for example, coal from the Moscow basin).

According to these data, it turns out that the accumulation of organic matter (wood or peat) is not related to coal. The formation of brown coal is an abiogenic process. But what? Why are brown coals located relatively shallow, while coal can be located at depths of up to two kilometers?

The next question is: where are all the fossils of flora and fauna in brown coal seams. They must be massive! Trunks, plants, skeletons and bones of dead animals - where are they?

Leave imprints are found only in overburden rocks:

Petrified fern. Such petrified plants come across during coal mining. This specimen was mined while working at the Rodinskaya mine in the Donbass. But we will return to these alleged fossils below.

This refers to the waste rock of coal mines. I didn't find anything on brown coal.

Areas of coal formation. Most of the coal is found in the northern hemisphere, absent from the equator and the tropics. But there is the most acceptable climate for the accumulation of organic matter in antiquity. There are also no areas (in latitudinal form) of accumulation on the old equators. This distribution is clearly related to another reason.

One more question. Why was this useful fossil fuel not used in antiquity? There are no mass descriptions of the extraction and use of brown coal. The first mention of coal refers only to the time of Peter I. It is not at all difficult to get (get to the bottom of the seam). This is done in an artisanal way by local residents in Ukraine:

There are also more large-scale open pit coal mining:

Coal under 8-10 meters of clay. For the formation of coal, geologists say you need a lot of pressure and temperature. It was clearly not here.

Coal is soft and crumbles.

When digging wells, they had to stumble upon the layers and find out that they were burning. But history tells us about the beginning of mass coal mining only in the 19th century.

Or maybe these layers did not exist until the 19th century? As it was not in the middle of the 19th century. trees! See the desert landscapes of the Crimea and photographs of Stolypin settlers who climbed into the remote corners of Siberia in wagon trains. And now there is an impenetrable taiga. This is me about the 19th century version of the flood. Its mechanism is not clear (if it did exist). But back to brown coals.

What breed do you think it is? Brown coal? Looks like it, but guess not. These are bituminous sands.

Large-scale oil production from tar sands in Canada. Before the fall in oil prices, it was a cost-effective, even profitable business. On average, out of four tons of bitumen, only one barrel of oil is produced.

If you do not know, then you will not think that oil is being produced here. It looks like a brown cut.

Another example from Ukraine:

In the village of Starunya (Ivano-Frankivsk region), oil comes to the surface by itself, creating small volcanoes. Some oil volcanoes are on fire!

Then it will all turn to stone and there will be a coal seam.

So what am I getting at? To the fact that oil during the cataclysm, the break of the earth came out, spilled. But not petrified in the sands. And brown coal, perhaps, is the same, but in Cretaceous or other deposits. There, the fraction before oil was less than sand. The stony state of the coals says that it is involved in the chalk layers. Perhaps some reactions took place and the layers turned into stone.

Even Wikipedia says:
Fossil coal is a mineral, a type of fuel, formed both from parts of ancient plants, and to a large extent from bituminous masses that poured onto the surface of the planet, metamorphosed due to sinking to great depths underground at high temperatures and without oxygen.
But the version of the abiogenic origin of brown coal from oil spills is not developed anywhere else.

Some write that this version does not explain the many layers of brown coal. If we take into account that not only masses of oil, but also water-mud sources came to the surface, then alternation is quite possible. Oil and bitumen are lighter than water - they floated on the surface and were deposited and adsorbed on the rock in the form of thin layers. Here is an example in a seismically active zone in Japan:

Water comes out of cracks. Of course, it is not deep, but what prevents the waters of artesian springs or underground oceans from coming out during larger processes and throwing masses of rocks milled into clay, sand, lime, salt, etc. to the surface when they come out. Set aside strata in a short period, not millions of years. I am more and more inclined that in some places at certain times the flood could be caused not by the passage of a wave from the ocean, but by the release of water and mud masses from the bowels of the Earth.

Sources:
http://sibved.livejournal.com/200768.html
https://new.vk.com/feed?w=wall178628732_2011
http://forum.gp.dn.ua/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=2210
http://chispa1707.livejournal.com/1698628.html

A separate issue is the formation of coal

Commentary in one of the articles from jonny3747 :
Coal in the Donbass is most likely the displacement of plates one under the other, along with all the forests, ferns, etc. He himself worked at depths of more than 1 km. The layers lie at an angle, as if one plate crawled under another. Between the layer of coal and the rock, there are very often imprints of plants, quite a lot caught my eye. And what is interesting between solid rock and coal there is a thin layer, as it were, not of rock, but not yet of coal, crumbles in the hands, unlike rock, it has a dark color and it was in it that there were often prints.

This observation fits very well with the process of pyrographite growth in these layers. Most likely, the author saw such:

Remembering the fern fossils in the photos above

Here are excerpts from the monograph "Unknown Hydrogen" and the work "History of the Earth without the Carboniferous Period":

Based on their own research and a number of works of other scientists, the authors state:
“Given the recognized role of deep gases, ... the genetic relationship of natural carbonaceous substances with juvenile hydrogen-methane fluid can be described as follows.
1. From the gas-phase system C-O-H (methane, hydrogen, carbon dioxide) ... carbonaceous substances can be synthesized - both in artificial conditions and in nature ...
5. Pyrolysis of methane diluted with carbon dioxide under artificial conditions leads to the synthesis of liquid ... hydrocarbons, and in nature - to the formation of the entire genetic series of bituminous substances.

CH4 → Sgraphite + 2H2

In the process of methane decomposition in depth, the formation of complex hydrocarbons occurs in a completely natural way! It happens because it turns out to be energetically favorable! And not only gaseous or liquid hydrocarbons, but also solid ones!
Methane and now constantly "oozes" in places of extraction of coal. It may be residual. Or it may be evidence of the continuation of the process of hydrocarbon vapors coming from the bowels.

Well, now it's time to deal with the "trump card" of the version of the organic origin of brown and hard coal - the presence of "coalified plant residues" in them.
Such "carbonized plant residues" are found in coal deposits in huge quantities. Paleobotanists "confidently identify plant species" in these "remains".
It was on the basis of the abundance of these "remains" that the conclusion was made about almost tropical conditions in the vast regions of our planet and the conclusion about the violent flowering of the plant world in the Carboniferous period.
But! When pyrolytic graphite was obtained by pyrolysis of methane diluted with hydrogen, it was found that, away from the gas flow, dendritic forms are formed in stagnant zones, very similar to "plant residues".

Samples of pyrolytic graphite with "plant patterns" (from the monograph "Unknown Hydrogen")

The simplest conclusion that follows from the above photographs of "carbonized plant forms", which in fact are only forms of pyrolytic graphite, will be this: paleobotanists now need to think hard! ..

And the scientific world continues to write dissertations on the origin of coals based on the biological accumulation of layers

1. Hydride compounds in the bowels of our planet decompose when heated (see the author’s article “Does the fate of Phaeton await the Earth? ..”), releasing hydrogen, which, in full accordance with the law of Archimedes, rushes up - to the surface of the Earth.
2. On its way, due to its high chemical activity, hydrogen interacts with the substance of the interior, forming various compounds. Including such gaseous substances as methane CH4, hydrogen sulfide H2S, ammonia NH3, water vapor H2O and the like.
3. Under conditions of high temperatures and in the presence of other gases that are part of the fluids of the subsurface, there is a step-by-step decomposition of methane, which, in full accordance with the laws of physical chemistry, leads to the formation of gaseous hydrocarbons, including complex ones.
4. Rising both along the existing cracks and faults in the earth's crust, and forming new ones under pressure, these hydrocarbons fill all the cavities available to them in geological rocks. And due to contact with these colder rocks, gaseous hydrocarbons pass into a different phase state and (depending on the composition and environmental conditions) form deposits of liquid and solid minerals - oil, brown and coal, anthracite, graphite and even diamonds.
5. In the process of formation of solid deposits, in accordance with the still far unexplored laws of self-organization of matter, under appropriate conditions, the formation of ordered forms occurs - including those reminiscent of the forms of the living world.

And another very curious detail: before the "Carboniferous period" - at the end of Devon - the climate is rather cool and arid, and after - at the beginning of Perm - the climate is also cool and arid. Before the "Carboniferous period" we have a "red continent", and after we have the same "red continent" ...
The following logical question arises: was there a warm "Carboniferous period" at all ?!.

Not a million-year age of the Carboniferous and brown coal seams explains a number of strange artifacts found in coals:

Iron mug found in coal 300 million years old.

Toothed rack in hard coal

Borodino coal mine. Krasnoyarsk region


Officially, these are layers of biomass accumulation from forests and plants, coked under other layers. Or it was powerful ancient peat bogs (lower thickest layer).

This pattern of coal layers is ubiquitous:

Nazarovsky coal mine. Two thin layers close to the surface

The main layer with brown coal does not look like a random mass with petrified trunks of ancient trees chaotically laid. The reservoir has clear strata - many layers. That is, the official version with ancient trees is not suitable. And it is not suitable yet because of the high sulfur content in brown coal seams.

Table of content of some chemical elements in coals, peat, wood and oil.

In order not to think about the meaning of the table, I will write the conclusions from it.
1. Carbon. In wood, it is the least of the listed fuel sources. And it is not clear (if we take into account the traditional version of coal formation) why the amount of carbon increases with the accumulation of organic matter (wood or peat) in the layers. A contradiction that no one explains.
2. Nitrogen and oxygen. Nitrogen compounds are one of the building blocks of wood and vegetation. And why the amount of nitrogen decreased after the transformation of wood or peat into brown coal is again not clear. Again a contradiction.
3. Sulfur. In wood there is no amount sufficient for the accumulation of this chemical element. Even in peat, sulfur is negligible compared to the layers of brown and hard coal. Where does sulfur get into the layers? The only assumption is that there was sulfur in the layers from the very beginning. Mixed with organic? But somehow, the concentration of sulfur in coals coincides with the sulfur content in oil.

Usually sulfur is pyrite, sulfate and organic. As a rule, pyrite sulfur prevails. The sulfur contained in coals is usually in the form of magnesium, calcium and iron sulfates, iron pyrite (pyritic sulfur) and in the form of organic sulfur-containing compounds. Separately determine, as a rule, only sulfate and sulfide sulfur; organic is defined as the difference between the amount of total sulfur in coal and the sum of sulfate and sulfide sulfur.

Sulfur pyrite is an almost constant companion of coal and, moreover, sometimes in such quantity that it makes it unfit for consumption (for example, coal from the Moscow basin).

According to these data, it turns out that the accumulation of organic matter (wood or peat) is not related to coal. The formation of brown coal is an abiogenic process. But what? Why are brown coals located relatively shallow, while coal can be located at depths of up to two kilometers?

The next question is: where are all the fossils of flora and fauna in brown coal seams. They must be massive! Trunks, plants, skeletons and bones of dead animals - where are they?

Leave imprints are found only in overburden rocks:

Petrified fern. Such petrified plants come across during coal mining. This specimen was mined while working at the Rodinskaya mine in the Donbass. But we will return to these alleged fossils below.

This refers to the waste rock of coal mines. I didn't find anything on brown coal.

Areas of coal formation. Most of the coal is found in the northern hemisphere, absent from the equator and the tropics. But there is the most acceptable climate for the accumulation of organic matter in antiquity. There are also no areas (in latitudinal form) of accumulation on the old equators. This distribution is clearly related to another reason.

One more question. Why was this useful fossil fuel not used in antiquity? There are no mass descriptions of the extraction and use of brown coal. The first mention of coal refers only to the time of Peter I. It is not at all difficult to get (get to the bottom of the seam). This is done in an artisanal way by local residents in Ukraine:

There are also more large-scale open pit coal mining:

Coal under 8-10 meters of clay. For the formation of coal, geologists say you need a lot of pressure and temperature. It was clearly not here.

Coal is soft and crumbles.

When digging wells, they had to stumble upon the layers and find out that they were burning. But history tells us about the beginning of mass coal mining only in the 19th century.

Or maybe these layers did not exist until the 19th century? As it was not in the middle of the 19th century. trees! See the desert landscapes of the Crimea and photographs of Stolypin settlers who climbed into the remote corners of Siberia in wagon trains. And now there is an impenetrable taiga. This is me about the 19th century version of the flood. Its mechanism is not clear (if it did exist). But back to brown coals.

What breed do you think it is? Brown coal? Looks like it, but guess not. These are bituminous sands.

Large-scale oil production from tar sands in Canada. Before the fall in oil prices, it was a cost-effective, even profitable business. On average, out of four tons of bitumen, only one barrel of oil is produced.

If you do not know, then you will not think that oil is being produced here. It looks like a brown cut.

Another example from Ukraine:

In the village of Starunya (Ivano-Frankivsk region), oil comes to the surface by itself, creating small volcanoes. Some oil volcanoes are on fire!

Then it will all turn to stone and there will be a coal seam.

So what am I getting at? To the fact that oil during the cataclysm, the break of the earth came out, spilled. But not petrified in the sands. And brown coal, perhaps, is the same, but in Cretaceous or other deposits. There, the fraction before oil was less than sand. The stony state of the coals says that it is involved in the chalk layers. Perhaps some reactions took place and the layers turned into stone.

Even Wikipedia says:
Fossil coal is a mineral, a type of fuel, formed both from parts of ancient plants, and to a large extent from bituminous masses that poured onto the surface of the planet, metamorphosed due to sinking to great depths underground at high temperatures and without oxygen.
But the version of the abiogenic origin of brown coal from oil spills is not developed anywhere else.

Some write that this version does not explain the many layers of brown coal. If we take into account that not only masses of oil, but also water-mud sources came to the surface, then alternation is quite possible. Oil and bitumen are lighter than water - they floated on the surface and were deposited and adsorbed on the rock in the form of thin layers. Here is an example in a seismically active zone in Japan:

Water comes out of cracks. Of course, it is not deep, but what prevents the waters of artesian springs or underground oceans from coming out during larger processes and throwing masses of rocks milled into clay, sand, lime, salt, etc. to the surface when they come out. Set aside strata in a short period, not millions of years. I am more and more inclined that in some places at certain times the flood could be caused not by the passage of a wave from the ocean, but by the release of water and mud masses from the bowels of the Earth.

Sources:
http://sibved.livejournal.com/200768.html
https://new.vk.com/feed?w=wall178628732_2011
http://forum.gp.dn.ua/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=2210
http://chispa1707.livejournal.com/1698628.html

A separate issue is the formation of coal

Commentary in one of the articles from jonny3747 :
Coal in the Donbass is most likely the displacement of plates one under the other, along with all the forests, ferns, etc. He himself worked at depths of more than 1 km. The layers lie at an angle, as if one plate crawled under another. Between the layer of coal and the rock, there are very often imprints of plants, quite a lot caught my eye. And what is interesting between solid rock and coal there is a thin layer, as it were, not of rock, but not yet of coal, crumbles in the hands, unlike rock, it has a dark color and it was in it that there were often prints.

This observation fits very well with the process of pyrographite growth in these layers. Most likely, the author saw such:

Remembering the fern fossils in the photos above

Here are excerpts from the monograph "Unknown Hydrogen" and the work "History of the Earth without the Carboniferous Period":

Based on their own research and a number of works of other scientists, the authors state:
“Given the recognized role of deep gases, ... the genetic relationship of natural carbonaceous substances with juvenile hydrogen-methane fluid can be described as follows.
1. From the gas-phase system C-O-H (methane, hydrogen, carbon dioxide) ... carbonaceous substances can be synthesized - both in artificial conditions and in nature ...
5. Pyrolysis of methane diluted with carbon dioxide under artificial conditions leads to the synthesis of liquid ... hydrocarbons, and in nature - to the formation of the entire genetic series of bituminous substances.

CH4 → Sgraphite + 2H2

In the process of methane decomposition in depth, the formation of complex hydrocarbons occurs in a completely natural way! It happens because it turns out to be energetically favorable! And not only gaseous or liquid hydrocarbons, but also solid ones!
Methane and now constantly "oozes" in places of extraction of coal. It may be residual. Or it may be evidence of the continuation of the process of hydrocarbon vapors coming from the bowels.

Well, now it's time to deal with the "trump card" of the version of the organic origin of brown and hard coal - the presence of "coalified plant residues" in them.
Such "carbonized plant residues" are found in coal deposits in huge quantities. Paleobotanists "confidently identify plant species" in these "remains".
It was on the basis of the abundance of these "remains" that the conclusion was made about almost tropical conditions in the vast regions of our planet and the conclusion about the violent flowering of the plant world in the Carboniferous period.
But! When pyrolytic graphite was obtained by pyrolysis of methane diluted with hydrogen, it was found that, away from the gas flow, dendritic forms are formed in stagnant zones, very similar to "plant residues".

Samples of pyrolytic graphite with "plant patterns" (from the monograph "Unknown Hydrogen")

The simplest conclusion that follows from the above photographs of "carbonized plant forms", which in fact are only forms of pyrolytic graphite, will be this: paleobotanists now need to think hard! ..

And the scientific world continues to write dissertations on the origin of coals based on the biological accumulation of layers

1. Hydride compounds in the bowels of our planet decompose when heated (see the author’s article “Does the fate of Phaeton await the Earth? ..”), releasing hydrogen, which, in full accordance with the law of Archimedes, rushes up - to the surface of the Earth.
2. On its way, due to its high chemical activity, hydrogen interacts with the substance of the interior, forming various compounds. Including such gaseous substances as methane CH4, hydrogen sulfide H2S, ammonia NH3, water vapor H2O and the like.
3. Under conditions of high temperatures and in the presence of other gases that are part of the fluids of the subsurface, there is a step-by-step decomposition of methane, which, in full accordance with the laws of physical chemistry, leads to the formation of gaseous hydrocarbons, including complex ones.
4. Rising both along the existing cracks and faults in the earth's crust, and forming new ones under pressure, these hydrocarbons fill all the cavities available to them in geological rocks. And due to contact with these colder rocks, gaseous hydrocarbons pass into a different phase state and (depending on the composition and environmental conditions) form deposits of liquid and solid minerals - oil, brown and coal, anthracite, graphite and even diamonds.
5. In the process of formation of solid deposits, in accordance with the still far unexplored laws of self-organization of matter, under appropriate conditions, the formation of ordered forms occurs - including those reminiscent of the forms of the living world.

And another very curious detail: before the "Carboniferous period" - at the end of Devon - the climate is rather cool and arid, and after - at the beginning of Perm - the climate is also cool and arid. Before the "Carboniferous period" we have a "red continent", and after we have the same "red continent" ...
The following logical question arises: was there a warm "Carboniferous period" at all ?!.

Not a million-year age of the Carboniferous and brown coal seams explains a number of strange artifacts found in coals:

Iron mug found in coal 300 million years old.

Toothed rack in hard coal

coal called sedimentary rock formed during the decomposition of plant remains (tree ferns, horsetails and club mosses, as well as the first gymnosperms). The main reserves of coal currently mined were formed during the Paleozoic period, about 300-350 million years ago. Coal has been mined for several centuries and is one of the most important minerals. Used as solid fuel.

Coal consists of a mixture of high-molecular aromatic compounds (mainly carbon), as well as water and volatile substances with a small amount of impurities. Depending on the composition of coal, the amount of heat released during its combustion, as well as the amount of ash formed, also changes. The value of coal and its deposits depends on this ratio.

For the formation of a mineral, it was also necessary to comply with the following condition: rotting plant material had to accumulate faster than its decomposition occurred. That is why coal was formed mainly on ancient peatlands, where carbon compounds accumulated, and there was practically no access to oxygen. The source material for the emergence of coal is, in fact, peat itself, which was also used as a fuel for some time. Coal, on the other hand, was formed if peat layers were under other sediments. At the same time, peat was compressed, losing water as a result of which coal was formed.

Coal occurs when peat layers occur at a considerable depth, usually more than 3 km. Anthracite, the highest grade of hard coal, is formed at a greater depth. However, this does not mean that all coal deposits are located at great depths. Over time, under the influence of tectonic processes of various directions, some layers experienced uplift, as a result of which they turned out to be closer to the surface.

The method of coal mining also depends on the depth at which coal-bearing deposits are located. If the coal lies at a depth of up to 100 meters, then mining is usually carried out in an open way. This is the name of the removal of the top above the deposit, in which the mineral is on the surface. For mining from great depths, the mine method is used, in which access to is carried out through the creation of special underground passages - mines. The deepest coal mines in Russia are about 1,200 meters below the surface.

The largest coal deposits in Russia

Elga field (Sakha)

This coal deposit, located in the southeast of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), 415 km east of the town of Neryungri, is the most promising for open pit mining. The deposit area is 246 km2. The deposit is a gently sloping asymmetric fold.

The deposits of the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous are coal-bearing. The main coal seams are located in the deposits of the Neryungri (6 seams, 0.7-17 m thick) and Undyktan (18 seams, also 0.7-17 m thick) formations.

The coals here are mostly semi-glossy with a very high content of the most valuable component - vitrinite (78-98%), medium and high ash, low sulfur, low phosphorus, good sintering, with a high calorific value. Elga coal can be enriched using a special technology, which will make it possible to obtain a product of a higher quality that meets international standards. Powerful flat coal seams are covered with deposits of small thickness, which is very important for open pit mining.

Elegest deposit (Tuva)

Located in the Republic of Tuva. This field has reserves of about 20 billion tons. Most of the reserves (about 80%) are located in a single layer 6.4 m thick. The development of this deposit is currently ongoing, so coal mining here should reach its maximum capacity around 2012.

Large deposits of coal (the area of ​​which is thousands of km2) are called coal basins. Typically, such deposits are located in some large tectonic structure (for example, a trough). However, not all deposits located close to each other are usually combined into basins, and sometimes they are considered as separate deposits. This usually happens according to historically established ideas (deposits were discovered in different periods).

Minusinsk coal basin is located in the Republic of Khakassia. Coal mining began here in 1904. The largest deposits include Chernogorskoye and Izykhskoye. According to geologists, the coal reserves in this area amount to 2.7 billion tons. Stone long-flame coals with a high calorific value predominate in the basin. The coals are classified as medium ash. The maximum ash content is typical for the coals of the Izykh deposit, the minimum - for the coals of the Beyskoye deposit. Coal mining in the basin is carried out in different ways: there are both cuts and mines.

Kuznetsk coal basin (Kuzbass) one of the largest coal deposits in the world. Kuzbass is located in the south in a shallow basin between the mountain ranges, Mountain Shoria and. This is the territory of the Kemerovo region. The abbreviation "Kuzbass" is the second name of the region. The first deposit in the Kemerovo region was discovered back in 1721, and in 1842 the term "Kuznetsk coal basin" was introduced by the geologist Chikhachev.

Mining here is also carried out in different ways. There are 58 mines and more than 30 cuts on the territory of the basin. In terms of quality, "" coals are diverse and are among the best coals.

The coal-bearing strata of the Kuznetsk coal basin consists of approximately 260 coal seams of various thicknesses, unevenly distributed along the section. The predominant thickness of coal seams is from 1.3 to 4.0 m, but there are also thicker seams of 9-15 and even 20 m, and in some places up to 30 m.

The maximum depth of coal mines does not exceed 500 m (average depth is about 200 m). The average thickness of the developed coal seams is 2.1 m, but up to 25% of mine coal production falls on seams over 6.5 m.