How much fossil structure is left in a typical coal bed? Will you find whole logs, leaves, seeds, etc? Or is it mostly so metamorphized that nothing is left?
I’m just worried that perhaps we are burning up an irreplacable fossil record. Should intact non-metamorphosed coal beds be protected from exploitation?
I know in oil shale beds, there is quite a bit of fossils to be found. In the 1980’s, Exxon and the Navy looked into retorting oil shale deposits into usable petroleum. (It went bust, BTW.) I went on a tour of their facilities in Colorado, and just looking down on the mine floor I found lots of fossils: ferns, reeds, and other plants. I have a feeling that if there was any info to be gleaned, they would’ve had a researcher get what fossils he found to be representative, then they would’ve gone ahead with their mining.
The thing is, fossils are dirt cheap and extremely common. Go down to your local natural history museum, and you’ll probably be able to buy genuine fossils for a few dollars at the gift shop. The problem is that interesting fossils are rare indeed: We know all we’ll ever need to know about what fern leaf imprints look like, or ancient mollusks, but there’s only a handful of vertibrate fossils around. I’m sure that if someone thought they might find dinosaur fossils in a coal bed, for instance, they’d look for them: Even a dino footprint would be worth far more than the coal. I don’t think, though, that one would expect to find any animal fossils in coal, so we don’t bother.
Patiently waiting for Anthricite
I find it interesting that I remember worring about running out of coal when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. They even knew about when we would run out. It won’t last til the year 2000 you know.
Well, I know that fossils are very common…you can go to quarries and scoop up fossil clams and snails by the bucketful. I imagine that interested parties have examined coal beds already, but couldn’t we get population data and such?
Well, guys, if I don’t answer a coal question you know it’s because:
I’m dead.
I have no net access.
I missed it because the thread was buried quickly under 200 new ones for the day, asking such new and refreshing topics as “does hot water freeze faster” and “what does felch mean”.
If you really have a coal question you would like my opinion on, or I missed a thread, I don’t mind getting a polite e-mail, BTW. But if you start talking shit about “switching teams” in your mail (like one person did recently) I’ll answer in the Pit instead of here.
The propensity of finding important fossils in coal beds varies greatly with the region, since the geologic processes involved vary a bit. For example, coal beds in England have been known to produce remarkable fossils since the 1800’s, and you can buy coal fossils in curio shops in London. In the US, the coal beds in the East are more likely to yield interesting fossils than in the West, and in the Southwest my understanding is they are not that common.
I have asked mine experts here on this, including one who is a real fossil hound. Their take on it is in general, yes, you can find fossils, but they seem to be mainly of the same sort of uninteresting plants that have been studied and cataloged for hundreds of years. Now sometimes the rock roof and floor of the mine itself can yield some very interesting fossils, but here is the dillemna: the only reason you find those is by coal mining, an if you keep stopping the equipment to look for fossils, then a coal mine that generates $50 million in revenue becomes a mine that loses $50 million in revenue. Sometimes the miner will pick through the rocks, but normally not. Because after work few want to stay underground, and mine and Union safety rules prohibit just wandering around after hours.
Hmmmm…so we can’t get these fossils without coal mining, yet we can’t get these fossils BECAUSE of coal mining.
Without collection many surface fossils will be destroyed a year or two after they are exposed, but these subterranean fossils are different because they are protected from disturbance. Well, I guess we have huge coal reserves for future paleontologists to go through once we perfect tunnelling nanoprobe fossil collection. But since we have huge reserves, I imagine there is some selectivity going on about which beds are easier to develop. Are the “easy” beds we use now more or less fossiliferous than average? Are we leaving enough of the more interesting beds for the future?
And: What about the taphonomy of the roof and floor make them more likely to contain interesting things? I’m trying to imagine the formation of these seams…does the roof represent a change in the climate/geography of the swamp the coal formed in, or is it a more recent geologic event? How often are coal beds metamorphosed so that NO fossils are left?
And: How many american coal beds don’t come from the classic Carboniferous? What’s the most youngest/oldest beds you’ve heard of? I would imagine that these old/young beds might be more interesting paleontologically.
And: I’m sorry I didn’t include a link in the ATMB thread (I guess I’m going to have to finally break down and learn to make em…)(hides head)