Comparison of the petrography, palynology, and paleobotany of the Little Fire Creek coal bed, southwestern Virginia, U.S.A.

Organic Geochemistry
By: , and 

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Abstract

Two continuous cores that penetrated the Lower Pennsylvanian Little Fire Creek coal bed in the Southwestern coal field in southwestern Virginia were sampled and X-ray radiographed to determine subunit distinctions. Comparison of petrographic, palynologic, and paleobotanic data from the same sample sets from the two cores allowed for comparison of compositional data within the Little Fire Creek coal bed. The proximate, petrographic, palynologic, and plant tissue data from two sets of samples indicate a high ash, gelocollinite- and liptinite-rich coal consisting of a relatively diverse paleoflora, including lycopsid trees, small lycopsids, tree ferns, small ferns, pteridosperms (seed ferns), and rare calamites and cordaites. The relatively very high ash yields (3–80 wt%), the relatively thin subunits (1–28 cm), and the large scale vertical variations in palynomorph floras suggest that the study area was at the edge of the paleopea-forming environment. As a result, most of the compositional correspondences are among those components indicative of degradation or decomposition.

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Comparison of the petrography, palynology, and paleobotany of the Little Fire Creek coal bed, southwestern Virginia, U.S.A.
Series title Organic Geochemistry
DOI 10.1016/0146-6380(95)90008-X
Volume 22
Issue 1
Year Published 1995
Language English
Publisher Elsevier
Description 21 p.
First page 51
Last page 71
Country United States
State Virginia
County Lee County, Scott County
Other Geospatial southwestern Virginia
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