I have never heard of there being any, but of course it could be that there just isn’t a significant amount.
The reason I am wondering is this:
Where exit 3 on-ramps to 93S in New Hampshire there is a section of recently blasted rock in the median. They are widening the interstate there.
As I pull onto the highway, I can see a very dark vein of rock running through the mostly granite cross-section. The dark vein is very crumbly with many chunks on the ground beneath it. I know next to nothing about coal, but it sure looks like it to me.
Unfortunately, given where it is, I can neither approach it without crossing the interstate nor take a photo without stopping in the middle of the on ramp.
Is it even conceivable that this is coal? What other typical NE rocks would look like this? I have to say that growing up around here and exploring many local woods I have never seen anything like it.
Not if, as you say, it’s in a granite outcrop. That’s just not going to happen. Ever.
Sounds like a dyke or vein. Lots of intrusives are black or dark rock, and can weather quite friably. Ditto for some of the hydrothermal vein minerals you can get in granite (although most veins are lighter-coloured, so I’d guess dyke first)
Could you look up the location on Google Earth/Google Maps, and maybe we can check it out on StreetView from there? It probably is too recent, but you never know.
Yeah, coal has no business being near granite. Coal would be found with sandstone, limestone, or shale; it’s origins would be typically be swampy areas. Granite, on the other hand, is igneous, with magma origins
You can get coal associated with igneous rocks (maybe a dyke passed through it, maybe some lava is above it [can even cook it to natural coke], maybe it was laid down on a granite bed) but not penetrating through granite, yeah.
OK, I found it on Google Street View. The area has changed quite a bit since this was taken, but the blasting was prior to this so I think I have found the vein. You’ll see a lot of black rocks below the area in question.
There are other narrower veins near it, but they look different to me and are not as friable. This is the really thick one running up from ground an to the left. Today, 1.5 years after the Google photo there is a LOT of rubble beneath the vein
Take a look at the links. The first shows 0 employees in coal mining. The only indication of any economic activity from coal mining is “Indirect and Induced” which I can only imagine is from purchase of coal, sale of coal, or making of machinery to sell to those that mine coal elsewhere.
The 2nd link lists NO sites in New Hampshire.
I’m going with it being non-coal intrusions of another material. Similar to those seen in many other places throughout New Hampshire. In fact, if you get off at exit 3, and head eastbound on Rt111, after you cross over Rt 28, you get onto the new Rt111, which was blasted through some rock with similar black seams that you can walk right up to (after pulling over on the side of the road).
There are regular very-long trains carrying coal northward to the power plants on the south side of Concord. I wouldn’t expect to see that if the demand could be supplied locally.
There is definitely no coal mining in New Hampshire, lots of lists of production by state (govt, NMA [see link] etc) never include it. I’ve seen statements (in regard to NH’s use of coal in powerplants) that there never was any. And I see no reason to disbelieve it.
Interesting how skewed coal production is now, high % in a relative few states, almost 40% just in Wyoming (where just one mine, Black Thunder, accounts for around 10% of the all US coal production)
The only place in New England that ever had coal mining in the industrial era, AFAIK, was the New England basin mainly in Rhode Island (but extending into adjacent parts of southern MA). Lots of period references from late 19th/early 20th centuries list Rhode Island as minor coal producer (or again RI/MA). But if there was ever any coal mining anywhere else in New England it was further back and on a very small scale, and there’s no coal mining at all in New England now.
The Appalachians run through NE and not only is there lots of accessible coal beneath them further south, but also in the tail end of the same geologic formation in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. But apparently not in New England (the New England basin in RI being separate).