ERS120H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Bituminous Coal, Surface Mining, Porosity
Document Summary
Layers of organic material are compressed and heated by burial. Water and gaseous compounds escape and a concentrated layer of carbon stays. The carbon increases in the residue with time. Peat bed gets buried and compressed and water and gases are removed from the layer. First step you get is lignite and with more heat and pressure, you get bituminous coal. The layers are stripped away until the coal beds are reached and the coal is taken out of the ground. This is not a environmentally friendly way of getting coal because there is a permanent change to the environment. Slow burial and conversion of organic matter into oil and natural gas. Once formed, oil and gas move through porous rock and are trapped in reservoirs. When there is high porosity and high permeability, there is more pore space and fluid flow. Source rock: original mud with organic material becomes oil shale.
