Geoscenario Introduction—Coal
terrain is famous for its rugged mountains
and hills. The area is mostly wooded, and is
home to many animals, such as black bears,
snakes (including venomous rattlesnakes and
copperheads), deer, elk, moose, and mice.
In the late 1800s, during the Industrial
Revolution, the demand for coal skyrocketed.
People had discovered that it served as an
excellent fuel that could be burned to power
steamships and steam locomotives. Residents
of West Virginia (Native Americans and
settlers from Europe) had used coal from
the West Virginia mountains for fuel for
A section of the Appalachian Trail passes
through West Virginia
Whether you know it or not, you’ve used
coal in your lifetime. Maybe it was burned
to generate electricity for your home or your
classroom; perhaps it fueled a factory that
made your pants or calculator. Humans have
quite some time, but now they saw business
opportunities. Coal mines quickly increased
in size and number, and the coal industry of
West Virginia was born.
The Formation of Coal
Coal serves as an excellent fuel because it
relied on coal as fuel for centuries. Now that
is energy dense, meaning that a piece of it
humans better understand the health and
will release far more energy as it burns than a
environmental concerns associated with
piece of wood of the same size. The key to its
coal use, how will coal use change as Earth’s
stored energy lies in its formation.
population (and demand for energy) grows?
Coal formation takes hundreds of millions
In this geoscenario, you’ll learn about how
of years, and it starts with ancient plants. All
coal is formed, how humans collect coal from
plants perform photosynthesis to convert
Earth, and some of the questions around coal
energy from the Sun into molecules that
use in the future.
are stored in the plants’ bodies. Most coal
Coal Country, West Virginia
Coal is mined in many locations
deposits are formed from plants that lived
and died around 300 million years ago (mya),
before the time of the dinosaurs.
throughout the United States. One of the
At that time, dead plant material fell or
oldest and largest coal mining areas is in
washed into swamps. Over millions of years,
West Virginia. This entire state is located
sediments settled on the plant material,
in the Appalachian Mountain range, so the
burying the plants under water and dirt.
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Railroad line was constructed along the
New River Gorge between 1869 and 1872.
The railroad transformed an isolated and
sparsely populated land of small farms into
a booming area of company-owned logging
and coal-mining towns. These towns supplied
the natural resources that fueled the US
industrial revolution, and they were melting
pots for diverse groups of new residents.
The formation of coal takes
hundreds of millions of years.
The C&O Railroad was built primarily by
thousands of Irish Catholic immigrants and
African-Americans freed from enslavement.
The C&O Railroad took 3 years of digging,
grading the rail bed, hand drilling, blasting
tunnels, building bridges, and laying tracks.
The work was done with hand tools and
explosives, with horses and mules helping
with the heaviest loads.
Coal starts developing from peat. At each
stage, the coal gets harder and has more
carbon in each gram.
Many dead plants decompose, but in these
conditions, with enough time, heat, and
pressure, partially decomposed plant material
called peat can turn into coal. Burning coal
releases the energy stored by those plants
many millions of years before, which is why
it’s considered a fossil fuel.
Moving Coal
Coal is found below ground, sometimes
just below the surface, and sometimes
much deeper, so people have to dig a
mine to access the coal. Once the coal is
removed from Earth, the next challenge is
to transport the coal across the country to
customers, which is mostly done by railroad.
The original Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O)
Coal travels from the mine to the power
plant by truck and train. There can be well
over 100 cars in a typical coal train.
Investigation 8: Geoscenarios 87
Impact of Coal Mining on the
Community
The coal mines of West Virginia are
vital parts of the economic well-being of
the people living in the region. However,
this benefit also comes with costs—
environmental risks and safety risks. A
mining accident resulting in the death of
three or more miners is officially classified as
a mine disaster. The New River Gorge was the
site of three major mine disasters. However,
of the 21,000 West Virginia coal miners who
have died since 1883, when fatalities were
first documented, most perished one at a time
in roof falls and machinery accidents.
A coal mine
Getting to the coal buried deep
underground requires heavy mining. One
mining technique removes the entire
mountain top, leading to problems with
erosion and runoff. Then, the coal must be
carried to power plants, often by train. Power
plants burn coal and generate electricity that
is used in the community.
Environmental risks can spread far from
the mine or the power plant. Water runoff
from mining sites can be highly acidic, and
can affect ground water and drinking-water
supplies. Burning coal presents a different
set of problems. Ash and carbon dioxide,
among other substances, are released into
the air during the coal-burning process. Ash
acts as a local pollutant for organisms living
in the area. Carbon dioxide moves into the
atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse
gas. There is strong scientific evidence that
More than half of the electricity produced in
the United States and 99 percent of the
electricity in West Virginia is generated by
coal-fired power plants.
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human-related carbon dioxide emissions can
cause climate change, also known as global
warming.