View allAll Photos Tagged bituminous
This is a Mississippian-Pennsylvanian boundary section in eastern Ohio. At most sites in North America, the boundary is a significant unconformity - it's actually a megasequence boundary (Sloss sequence boundary) between the Absaroka Megasequence (above) and the Kaskaskia Megasequence (below). The boundary is along the middle of the photo.
The cliff-forming unit in the middle and upper parts of the picture is a quartzose sandstone that represents the basal-preserved Pottsville Group at this locality. Mixed siliciclastics occur above. The sandstone unit is here interpreted to be the Massillon Sandstone, a variably-developed member in the lower to middle Pottsville Group.
Laterally at this site, a relatively thin bituminous coal horizon is present just below the sandstone. The identity of this coal bed is uncertain, but it may be the Quakertown Coal (or Number 2 Coal), or an unnamed coal, or the Wellston Coal (a name from Jackson County, Ohio). If the sandstone unit is misidentified (i.e., it's not the Massillon), it could be the Sharon Sandstone. If so, the underlying coal is the Sharon Coal.
The grayish rocks in the bottom half of the picture are siliciclastics of the Vinton Member, the uppermost of four members of the Logan Formation. The Vinton consists of marine mixed siliciclastics - principally shales, siltstones, and sandstones.
Stratigraphy: inferred Massillon Sandstone (lower Pottsville Group, upper Lower Pennsylvanian) over Vinton Member, (upper Logan Formation, Osagean Series, upper Lower Mississippian)
Locality: Trinway West 6 Outcrop - roadcut on the northwestern side of Rt. 16, 1.0 miles northeast of the Rt. 16-Old Riley Road intersection, northeast of the town of Frazeysburg & west of the town of Trinway, northwestern Muskingum County, Ohio, USA (40° 08' 41.54" North latitude, 82° 05' 06.18" West longitude)
Lat. 40° N.; Long. 80° W.
62-(6322)
BLAST FURNACE, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
The United States leads all other countries in the production of iron ore. It produces over one third of the ore of the world, or over 65,000,000 tons. Germany ranks second with over half this amount; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ranks third with about one-fourth; and France ranks fourth with about one-fifth. Pittsburgh leads all other cities in the world in the manufacture of iron and steel.
This view shows a section of one of the great Pittsburgh plants. The iron ore is drawn up the tracks on the steep incline in the center of the view. You see two of the cars now climbing the grade. The contents of these cars are dropped into the big furnaces where the ore is heated to a great temperature by coke fires. This furnace is 85 feet high and 18 feet across its top. It is made of brick and cased with iron. The four drums to the right are huge stoves. These pump heated air into the furnace. You know fire will not burn without air. If cold air were turned into the furnace it would reduce the temperature. Engines drive this hot air into the furnace in great gusts or blasts, hence the name blast furnace. The pipe on the left side of the furnace is to carry off gases. The heat in this furnace must be as much as 2,500 F.
The manufacture of iron in the United States began first in Easton, Pennsylvania. Charcoal was used as a fuel in those days. Later it was learned that anthracite was a better fuel to smelt ore; and blast furnaces were located as near as possible to the hard coal fields. Still later it was learned that coke was even better than anthracite, for smelting purposes, and the iron business began to move from the hard coal fields in eastern Pennsylvania to the bituminous fields in western Pennsylvania where it is now centered.
University of Southampton Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics,
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, "Bituplaning: A Low Dry Friction Phenomenon of New Bituminous Road Surfaces" By John Charles Bullas BSc MSc MIAT MIHT FGS May 2007 Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Sandstone-coal-tonsteins in the Cretaceous of Wyoming, USA.
The outcrop seen here consists of Upper Cretaceous sedimentary rocks near the town of Superior, Wyoming. The unit at top is a quartzose sandstone of the basal Ericson Sandstone. Below the Ericson Sandstone is the uppermost Rock Springs Formation. The black layers are coals (hand samples indicate that these are apparently sub-bituminous coals) - this is the Rock Springs No. 5 Coal Bed. The thin, whitish-colored beds in the coal interval are soft claystones that were originally volcanic ash beds. They have been chemically altered as a result of deposition and burial in the acidic, reducing conditions of a coal swamp environment. Such altered volcanic ash beds are called tonsteins.
Stratigraphy: lower Ericson Sandstone over upper Rock Springs Formation, Upper Cretaceous
Locality: hairpin curve roadcut along Superior Cutoff Road, northeastern side of Horse Thief Canyon, east of the town of Superior, central Sweetwater County, southwestern Wyoming, USA (41° 45' 58.04" North latitude, 108° 56' 22.36" West longitude)
On our trip down south, February 24, 2018. We stopped at Shag Point/Matakaea as I had never been there before. Matakaea is the name of the pa (fortified village). We have left Dunedin and going to stay in Timaru for a night before heading back to Christchurch.
Shag Point/Matakaea has a rich history, from early Ngai Tahu settlement to historic coalmining. The area has diverse marine life. It has interesting flora, is great for wildlife viewing, and is geologically fascinating.
Flat rock platforms provide an easy haul-out site for New Zealand fur seals, and cliff-top viewing areas allow you to observe seal behaviour without disturbing their rest.
Whalers discovered the first bituminous coal in New Zealand here in the 1830s. By 1862 the exposed coal seams were found to be commercially viable and were successfully mined until 1972, when flooding eventually closed shafts that extended under the coast. Evidence of coal mining is still obvious throughout the reserve.
Matakaea is jointly managed by DOC and Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu. Matakaea has Topuni status. The mana (authority) and rangatiratanga (chieftainship) of Ngai Tahu over the area is recognised publicly by this status. Ngai Tahu takes an active role in managing the natural and cultural values of the area.
For More Info: www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/otago/p...
On the left side is the village 'Hohe Düne' and in the middle is the bituminous coal power plant of Rostock + parts of the overseas harbour.
University of Southampton Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics,
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, "Bituplaning: A Low Dry Friction Phenomenon of New Bituminous Road Surfaces" By John Charles Bullas BSc MSc MIAT MIHT FGS May 2007 Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Manufactured by the Stanton Ironworks Co Ltd in Ilkeston, Derbyshire (the iron connection is in the mould pattern) was the WWII Stanton Air Raid Shelter. A segment shelter made by the former workshop producing spun-concrete lighting columns ceased production and turned over to concrete air-raid shelters, of which 100,000 tons were manufactured, principally for the air ministry.
Reinforced concrete proved an ideal material for air-raid shelters, being strong and resistant to shock with no deterioration with the passing of time. This type of segment shelter was of simple design and of low cost, of which any length of shelter could be built up from the pre-cast steel reinforced concrete segments usually for 50 personnel. The segments were 20 inches wide, a pair of them formed an arch 7ft high and transverse struts were provided to ensure rigidity. These fitted into longitudinal bearers which were grooved to receive the foot of each segment. Each pair of segments was bolted together at the apex of the arch and each segment was also bolted to its neighbour, the joints being sealed with a bituminous compound. The convenient handling of these segments enabled them to be transported onto sites where close access by motor lorry was not possible. Partly buried in the ground, covered with earth/turf, sometimes a suitably brick lined entrance and concrete steps if required, escape hatch at the opposite end. These bolted together air raid shelters afforded safe protection against blast and splinters.
This train is headed to the Lambert's Point loading dock for shipment overseas. It's waiting for clearance at the west end of the Newberry Rail Yard. The coal that it carries is a semi-bituminous low smoke variety mined in northern Lycoming County.
University of Southampton Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics,
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, "Bituplaning: A Low Dry Friction Phenomenon of New Bituminous Road Surfaces" By John Charles Bullas BSc MSc MIAT MIHT FGS May 2007 Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Semi-anthracite coal in the Mississippian of Virginia, USA.
This is the best outcrop anywhere of the only economically significant Mississippian-aged coal occurrence in the world. The beds are structurally tilted - this occurred during the Allegheny Orogeny in the Pennsylvanian.
The coal bed shown here is the Merrimac Coal. Its rank is semi-anthracite coal, which results from very low grade metamorphism of bituminous coal. Adjacent beds are not metamorphosed. The Merrimac Coal (& the subjacent Langhorne Coal - not visible in this shot) have been mined in the past. Thin interbeds of fossiliferous clayshale are present within the Merrimac Coal.
Stratigraphy: Merrimac Coal, lower part of the upper member, Price Formation, Osagean Stage, upper Lower Mississippian
Locality: roadcut on the eastern side of Rt. 100, western end of Cloyds Mountain, south of the town of Poplar Hill, Pulaski County, Valley Coalfield, southwestern Virginia, USA (= locality shown in figure 9 of Bartholomew & Brown, 1992) (37° 10' 42.39" North latitude, 80° 42' 48.48" West longitude)
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Some info. from:
Bartholomew, M.J. & K.E. Brown. 1992. The Valley Coalfield (Mississippian age) in Montgomery and Pulaski Counties, Virginia. Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 124. 33 pp. 2 pls.
Gensel, P.G. & K.B. Pigg. 2010. An arborescent lycopsid from the Lower Carboniferous Price Formation, southwestern Virginia, USA and the problem of species delimitation. International Journal of Coal Geology 83: 132-145.
University of Southampton Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics,
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, "Bituplaning: A Low Dry Friction Phenomenon of New Bituminous Road Surfaces" By John Charles Bullas BSc MSc MIAT MIHT FGS May 2007 Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Coal-mining operations began in Thurber in 1886 and reached a peak around 1920, when the town had a population of approximately 8,000 to 10,000, from more than a dozen nationalities, though Italians, Poles, and Mexicans predominated. At the peak, Thurber was one of the largest bituminous coal-mining towns in Texas. Established as a company town, the mining operations in Thurber were unionized in 1903 and Thurber became the first totally closed shop town in the country. The company that owned the town, the Texas and Pacific Coal Company, also produced vitrified paving bricks that were used throughout Texas and the southern half of the United States. By 1920, conversion of locomotives from coal to oil reduced demand and lowered prices and miners left the area through the 1920s. By 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, Thurber was essentially a ghost town
(Updated May 14, 2024)
Scaling the heights of Cream City Brick on the church's southern bell tower. For an overall view of this distinctive house of worship, see Part 1.
Also visible in this image is a window sill and other trim of Silurian-period Lemont-Joliet Dolostone, the city's most widely used variety of Chicagoland's native building stone.
Milwaukeean friends of mine have the right to ask, "Why are you beginning your discussion of our famous brick by showing it used in Chicago, the Evil City of the Flatlanders, of all places!?! This is outright heresy! We have scads of beautiful buildings made of the stuff! Why don't you feature them instead?"
Chill out, you Cheeseheads. I love Milwaukee and its brick and buildings and geology so much I've just written a whole book on the Cream City (NIU imprint of Cornell University Press, due out in spring of 2024). I just happened to start with Old St. Pat's because it was covered in my already-published Chicago in Stone and Clay (also see the publisher's link, below). And you should be proud that your brick has been used in so many places besides your own home town.
I like this particular shot because it reveals both Cream City Brick's lovely pale-yellow tint and its propensity to show off its collected soot a little more overtly than most other building materials.
As I hope to eventually show, some of Milwaukee's most magnificent buildings (e.g., Old St. Mary's Catholic Church), are now almost completely black rather than cream-colored, largely because they are survivors from the Age of Bituminous Coal Burning. But, as I write in my forthcoming tome, I'm an unrepentant fuligophile (grime aesthete) who has the brazen temerity to actually like the brick that way. And I like the dark highlights (lowlights?) on the St. Pat's facade, too. That moderate amount of gunk adds character. I hope no misguided restorationists ever try to clean it off.
The next photo in this set will show the Cream City Brick here at close range. That will be the perfect time to discuss its glacial and fluviatile origins in Milwaukee's river valleys.
For more on this site, see my book Chicago in Stone and Clay, described at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765063/chicago-i...
And the other photos and descriptions of this series can be found in my Geobrickology album.
This is an exposure of the Pottsville Group, a Pennsylvanian-aged cyclothemic succession containing nonmarine shales, marine shales, siltstones, sandstones, coals, marine limestones, and chert ("flint"). The lower Pottsville dates to the late Early Pennsylvanian. The upper part dates to the early Middle Pennsylvanian. The Lower-Middle Pennsylvanian boundary is apparently somewhere near the Boggs Member (?).
The ledge in the middle and bottom of the photo is the Bedford Coal, a horizon that occurs just below the Upper Mercer Limestone (or Upper Mercer Flint). Lithologically, the Bedford ranges from carbonaceous shale to argillaceous coal to bituminous coal to cannel coal. The cannel coal in the Bedford was targeted for mining in the 1800s as a source of fuel. It was particularly useful in the manufacture of kerosene, an illuminating fuel. After the petroleum industry started in the 1860s, production of kerosene from cannel coal essentially ceased.
In this outcrop, the Bedford Coal consists of cannel coal and bituminous coal.
Stratigraphy: Bedford Coal, upper Pottsville Group, Atokan Stage, lower Middle Pennsylvanian
Locality: Tunnel Hill North Portal Outcrop (= Noland Tunnel's northern portal), ~1.75 air miles north-northeast of the town of Tunnel Hill, western Coshocton County, eastern Ohio, USA (~40° 16’ 33.27” North latitude, ~82° 01’ 53.04” West longitude)
Sandstone-coal-tonsteins in the Cretaceous of Wyoming, USA.
The outcrop seen here consists of Upper Cretaceous sedimentary rocks near the town of Superior, Wyoming. The unit at top is a quartzose sandstone of the basal Ericson Sandstone. Below the Ericson Sandstone is the uppermost Rock Springs Formation. The black layers are coals (hand samples indicate that these are apparently sub-bituminous coals) - this is the Rock Springs No. 5 Coal Bed. The thin, whitish-colored beds in the coal interval are soft claystones that were originally volcanic ash beds. They have been chemically altered as a result of deposition and burial in the acidic, reducing conditions of a coal swamp environment. Such altered volcanic ash beds are called tonsteins.
Stratigraphy: lower Ericson Sandstone over upper Rock Springs Formation, Upper Cretaceous
Locality: hairpin curve roadcut along Superior Cutoff Road, northeastern side of Horse Thief Canyon, east of the town of Superior, central Sweetwater County, southwestern Wyoming, USA (41° 45' 58.04" North latitude, 108° 56' 22.36" West longitude)
University of Southampton Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics,
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, "Bituplaning: A Low Dry Friction Phenomenon of New Bituminous Road Surfaces" By John Charles Bullas BSc MSc MIAT MIHT FGS May 2007 Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The Messel Pit (German: Grube Messel) is a disused quarry near the village of Messel, (Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about 35 km southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its plethora of fossils, it has significant geological and scientific importance. After almost becoming a landfill, strong local resistance eventually stopped these plans, and the Messel Pit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site on 9 December 1995. Significant scientific discoveries are still being made, and the site has become an increasing tourism site as well.
Dactylioceras Ammonite Group
from Germany
183 Million Years, Early Jurassic Period
Measurements Approx.
Height - 8.2 cm
Width - 18.5 cm
Length - 22.1 cm
Dactylioceras, meaning ‘Finger Horn’ is a species of Ammonite which in habited the open seas during the Early Jurassic period 200-175 million years ago.
Dactylioceras is a common find in Jurassic bituminous shales. These shales formed when limited water circulation allowed stagnant (still, oxygen-poor) conditions to develop in dense sediments on the sea floor. This was favourable for preservation of ammonites and other shells in various ways.
The impermeable nature of the sediment prevented the shell’s structure of aragonite material from dissolving away.
In addition, the stagnant conditions encountered by the shells when they sank to the bottom meant that burrowing animals or currents would not disturb them as the fossilisation process occurred.
Several individuals are preserved in the block shown here, discovered that Dactylioceras had gregarious (group-living) habits.
Possibly, like many modern cephalopods, such as squid, they congregated in large swarms or schools to breed.
www.london-fossils-crystals.co.uk/dactylioceras-ammonite-...
Example of asbestos-containing pipe insulation shown as a dark brown/black bituminous ribbon, spiral-wrapped around a pipe surface in a mechanical area.
Sometimes this type of material may be pliable and sticky, However in this case the older insulation has dried and rendered crumbly, potentially more likely to become damaged during maintenance, renovation, or demolition activities.
Structural polish in semi-anthracite coal in the Mississippian of Virginia, USA.
This is the best outcrop anywhere of the only economically significant Mississippian-aged coal occurrence in the world. The beds are structurally tilted, which occurred during the Allegheny Orogeny in the Pennsylvanian.
Shown above is an outcrop of the Langhorne Coal. At this site, the unit is tectonically-thickened and sheared. The rank is semi-anthracite coal, which results from very low grade metamorphism of bituminous coal. Adjacent beds (shales and sandstones) are not metamorphosed. The Langhorne Coal has been mined in the past.
The surface facing the viewer is smooth and polished, the result of shearing (= fault movement) in incompetent rocks. Such surfaces are called "structural polish". High polish can also occur on some bedrock-smoothed glacial surfaces.
Stratigraphy: lowermost upper member, Price Formation, Osagean Stage, upper Lower Mississippian
Locality: roadcut on the eastern side of Rt. 100, western end of Cloyds Mountain, south of the town of Poplar Hill, Pulaski County, Valley Coalfield, southwestern Virginia, USA (= locality shown in figure 9 of Bartholomew & Brown, 1992) (37° 10' 42.39" North latitude, 80° 42' 48.48" West longitude)
----------------------
Some info. from:
Bartholomew, M.J. & K.E. Brown. 1992. The Valley Coalfield (Mississippian age) in Montgomery and Pulaski Counties, Virginia. Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 124. 33 pp. 2 pls.
Gensel, P.G. & K.B. Pigg. 2010. An arborescent lycopsid from the Lower Carboniferous Price Formation, southwestern Virginia, USA and the problem of species delimitation. International Journal of Coal Geology 83: 132-145.
University of Southampton Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics,
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, "Bituplaning: A Low Dry Friction Phenomenon of New Bituminous Road Surfaces" By John Charles Bullas BSc MSc MIAT MIHT FGS May 2007 Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Cannel coal from the Pennsylvanian of England. (~7.3 centimeters across at its widest)
Cannel is an odd variety of coal. It doesn’t have the look and feel of ordinary coal ranks such as lignite, bituminous, and anthracite. Cannel coals are low-density (lightweight for their size), as all coals are, but are surprisingly tight and solid - they hold up to natural weathering pretty well, considering they’re coals. They tend to have a satiny or velvety luster, are not sooty to the touch, and frequently have conchoidal fracture (smooth & curved fracture surfaces). Cannel coals lack the well-developed horizontal bedding & laminations seen in lignites and bituminous coals.
Not surprisingly, the differences in physical characterstics between cannel coal and other ranks of coal are due to the organic matter content. Cannel coals are composed principally of fossil spores (sporinite phytoclasts). Garden-variety coals are composed principally of a mix of altered fragmented plant debris that was originally woody tissue, leaves, fungi, and spores. Cannel coals are generally interpreted as having formed in pond, lagoon, or channel facies within a larger coal swamp setting.
The sample seen here is from the Wigan area of England. Cannel coal has been mined in the area for many centuries.
Stratigraphy: unrecorded / undisclosed Pennsylvanian-aged unit ("Upper Carboniferous")
Location: unrecorded / undisclosed locality at or near the town of Wigan, west of Manchester, England
This coal is from Walker County, AL. I stopped by a pit today that is being operated by the Haley Brothers Coal Co. and got this shot of there stockpile. The shot is a composite of four individual shots. I used Hugin to stitch them.
University of Southampton Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics,
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, "Bituplaning: A Low Dry Friction Phenomenon of New Bituminous Road Surfaces" By John Charles Bullas BSc MSc MIAT MIHT FGS May 2007 Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
This partly exposed World War Two Stanton air raid shelter, is positioned on a chicken farm so access is restricted. It is not registered on the Defence of Britain Database. Not sure why it is located here, but the site is roughly positioned halfway between RAF Wendling and RAF Attlebridge airfields.
Manufactured by the Stanton Ironworks Co Ltd in Ilkeston, Derbyshire (the iron connection is in the mould pattern) was the World War Two Stanton Air Raid Shelter. A segment shelter made by the former workshop producing spun-concrete lighting columns ceased production and turned over to concrete air-raid shelters, of which 100,000 tons were manufactured, principally for the Air Ministry.
Reinforced concrete proved an ideal material for air-raid shelters, being strong and resistant to shock with no deterioration with the passing of time. This type of segment shelter was of simple design and of low cost, of which any length of shelter could be built up from the pre-cast steel reinforced concrete segments usually for 50 personnel. The segments were 20 inches wide, a pair of them formed an arch 7 feet high and transverse struts were provided to ensure rigidity. These fitted into longitudinal bearers which were grooved to receive the foot of each segment.
Each pair of segments was bolted together at the apex of the arch and each segment was also bolted to its neighbour, the joints being sealed with a bituminous compound. The convenient handling of these segments enabled them to be transported onto sites where close access by vehicles was not possible. Partly buried in the ground, covered with earth and turf, sometimes a suitably brick lined entrance and concrete steps if required, escape hatch at the opposite end. These bolted together air raid shelters afforded safe protection against blast and splinters.
Information sourced from - andersonshelters.org.uk/other-shelters/stanton-shelters/
The Meigs Creek Coal is a bituminous coal horizon in the Upper Pennsylvanian Monongahela Group of eastern Ohio. The specimen seen here is a gradational contact sample from the top of the coal bed (= black) to the base of the overlying nonmarine limestone (an intraclastic or peloidal limestone) (= dark gray).
Stratigraphy: uppermost Meigs Creek Coal (also known as the Sewickley Coal), Monongahela Group, Virgilian Series, upper Upper Pennsylvanian
Locality: near the base of the Narrows Run North outcrop - roadcut on the western side of Route 7, just north of Narrows Run (an east-flowing tributary of the Ohio River), northeastern York Township, southeastern Belmont County, Ohio, USA (39° 54’ 25.94” North latitude, 80° 48’ 36.73” West longitude)