Trace Elements in West Virginia Coals

Scandium (Sc) Summary Statistics

Scandium averaged 3.71 ppm (± 2.19 ppm) in West Virginia coals with a skewed histogram showing a significant tail toward high values and a maximum value of 13.69 ppm in a bench of the Coalburg coal. Scandium correlated well with ash yield and the ash related elements chromium (Cr), thorium (Th), vanadium (V), lithium (Li), gallium (Ga), hafnium (Hf), lead (Pb), tantalum (Ta), yttrium (Y) and cesium (Cs). Scandium is one of the rare earth elements and correlated well with several others, including europium (Eu), ytterbium (Yb), lutetium (Lu), cerium (Ce), samarium (Sm), lanthanum (La), terbium (Tb) and erbium (Er). Many of these rare earth elements are components of monazite.

**Spearman Correlation Coefficients (r) with Scandium**
Ash Yield	Cr	Th	Eu	Yb	Lu	V	Ce	Sm	La
+0.7691	+0.8789	+0.8644	+0.8595	+0.8568	+0.8488	+0.8378	+0.8137	+0.8059	+0.7672
n = 845	n = 844	n = 822	n = 540	n = 547	n = 503	n = 844	n = 546	n = 538	n = 545
Li	Ga	Hf	Pb	Tb	Ta	Er	Te	Y	Cs
+0.7590	+0.7509	+0.7482	+0.7468	+0.7425	+0.7396	+0.7328	+0.6799	+0.6764	+0.6758
n = 845	n = 844	n = 509	n = 842	n = 493	n = 462	n = 208	n = 113	n = 845	n = 781

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Page last revised: March 2, 2002

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