GUIDELINES FOR SAMPLE COLLECTING AND ANALYTICAL METHODS USED IN THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY FOR DETERMINING CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF COAL

By Vernon E. Swanson and Claude Huffman, Jr.

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 735
1976

INTRODUCTION

Frequent requests for information from industry, university, and government groups for our coal geochemical methods have prompted the preparation of this report. The demand for high-quality complete chemical data on coal can only become greater with increased coal use; in order to establish reliability and comparability of analytical data, some standards and guidelines are required. The data are fundamental in determining the economic value of the coal, in evaluating environmental effects of coal mining and of coal use, and in determining potential byproduct recovery and the adaptability of the coal to beneficiation, gasification, liquefaction, and other technologic processes of coal treatment. The data also can be used to correlate coal beds, to indicate the bog, marsh, or lagoonal environments of peat accumulation, and to determine postdepositional processes of preservation and alteration of the coal.

Most of the guidelines and methods described here were adopted during the comprehensive Southwest Energy Study conducted by the U.S. Department of the Interior in late 1971. The resulting report (Swanson, 1972), which included analyses of 71 coal samples and 16 power plant ash samples, marked the beginning of a new period of modern coal analyses. Since then, more than 3,000 samples of coal and associated rock have been analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey; most of the analyses have been made publiclly available in several reports (Swanson, 1972; U.S. Geological Survey and Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, 1973, 1974; Swanson, Huffman, and Hamilton, 1974; Swanson and others, 1976). Major segments of the data have also been summarized in a series of papers presented at national scientific meetings (Medlin and others, 1975a, b; Coleman and others, 1975; Millard and Swanson, 1975; Hatch and Swanson, 1976), and prepared by the State Geological Surveys (Glass (Wyo.), 1975; Conwell (Alaska), 1976). Pertinent data have also been incorporated into several environmental impact statements and in many published reports on local areas by geologists of the U.S. Geological Survey.

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