The
geological recipe for making anthracite
by
John
Pagoda
Excerpted
from http://www.MineCountry.com/homeMine/dispart.cfm?id=65 October 2003
Given
the geology, the anthracite fields of Northeast Pennsylvania are not
continuous, but are broken into fields. Thus, the anthracite region is divided
into four distinct fields covering an area of about 490 square miles.
The
Northern Field, with an area of about 176 square miles, extends through the
Lackawanna-Wyoming Valley from Forest City to Shickshinny in a canoe-shaped
arc. The coal beds lie in near horizontal layers, gently sloping up the sides
of the valley where they are exposed in outcrops running along the flanks. The
field is about 55 miles long and has a maximum width of about six miles.
Vertical shafts in this field have depths ranging from a few hundred feet to
almost 1500 feet at the deepest points in the southern end near Nanticoke. The
principal towns in the field are Forrest City, Carbondale, Scranton, Pittston,
Wilkes-Barre, Plymouth, Nanticoke and Shickshinny. Mining companies present
here included the Hudson Coal Co., Lehigh Valley Coal Co., the Delaware,
Lackawanna and Western Coal Mining Co., the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre, Coal Co.,
the Pennsylvania Coal Co., and the Susquehanna Coal Co.
The
Eastern Middle Field is located in the vicinity of Hazleton and is about 26
miles long and 10 miles wide. It is the smallest of the four fields and
consists of a series of smaller, trough-like basins of coal beds running in an
east to west direction. There are at least nine separate tracts in the field.
Some of these basins lie near horizontal while others are severely folded. The
principal city here is Hazleton with nearby smaller villages including West
Hazleton, Harleigh, Eckley and Audenried. The majority of collieries in this
area were the smaller family owned operators such as Coxe Brothers and Co.,
Pardee Brothers and Co. and the later Jeddo-Highland Coal Co.
The
Western Middle Field runs in an east and west direction for about 33 miles
passing through communities such as Mahanoy City, Shenandoah, Ashland,
Centralia, Mount Carmel and Shamokin. At its maximum, the field is about four
miles wide. The geology here consists of many small parallel valleys and ridges
and severely folded and faulted coal seams. Deep shafts went down as far as
1500 feet in this region. The Mammoth Coal Bed is most prominent here reaching
a maximum thickness of greater than 30 feet. The Philadelphia and Reading Coal
and Iron Company and the Susquehanna Coal Co. were the most prominent operators
in the region.
The
Southern Field is the largest of the four anthracite fields consisting of
several smaller, interconnected coal basins. The main axis of the field extends
for approximately 55 miles in a southwesterly direction beginning near Jim
Thorpe (Mauch Chunk), and ending into two tails in Dauphin County. The major
towns contained in this field include Lansford, Coaldale, Tamaqua, Pottsville,
Minersville, Tower City and Lykens. The coal beds here are severely folded with
the deepest layers reaching down to 2000 feet. The dominant coal operator here
was the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Co.
At
least 40 coal seams are within the four fields and there are several smaller,
erratic fields in between. These range in size from a few inches in thickness
to many feet. Most are named, but not all of them are workable due to their
thinness or economic value. Their names are almost site-specific and can be
different between fields and even between coal companies.
The
thickest layer is the Mammoth Bed, most prominent in the lower Southern Field
and Western Field where it reaches a thickness of 40-50 feet. It is most
commonly called the Baltimore Bed, among other names in the Northern Field,
where it has a thickness of several feet. The deepest beds are the multiple
splits of the Red Ash Bed in the Northern Field. It is know as the Buck
Mountain Bed in the Eastern Field and the Lykens Bed in the Western and
Southern fields. The Southern Field has the most extensive layering of the four
fields.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Darton,
N. H. Some Structural Features of the Northern Anthracite Coal Basin,
Pennsylvania. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1940.
Griffith,
W. M. Approximate Columnar
Sections Showing the Co-Relations of Anthracite Coal Beds of Pennsylvania.
Scranton: W. M. Griffith, Mining Engineer and Geologist.
Haine.
Edgar A. Anthracite Coal. Chicago: Adams Press, 1987.
Hudson
Coal Company. The Story of Anthracite. Scranton: International Textbook Press,
1932.
Levin,
Harold L. The Earth Through Time. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Publishers,
1999.
Levine,
Jeffrey R. and Jane R. Eggleston.The Anthracite Basins of Eastern Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania State University, 1992.
Majumdar,
Shyamal K. and E. Willard Miller.Pennsylvania Coal. The Pennsylvania Academy of
Science, 1983.
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The Hopkin Thomas Project
Revised December 2009