This article appeared in the Dominion Post Newspaper on November 14, 2000. Return to the listing of articles of November 14, 2000. Coal Coal is found in layers of the earth. The kinds of fossils found in the coal help determine the age of these beds and the kind of coal produced.
Brown coal is a compacted mass of plant remains.
Lignite is made chiefly out of trees only partially converted to coal. Anthracite or hard coal is metamorphosed bituminous coal. The are numerous theories on the origin of coal beds. The peat bog theory notes that plants fall and are covered by swamp water before they decompose. A layer of sand is then deposited over this by water in motion, which then becomes the soil for new plants.