Trace Elements in West Virginia Coals

Ytterbium (Yb) Summary Statistics

Ytterbium averaged 0.80 ppm (± 0.44 ppm) in West Virginia coals with an irregular skewed histogram showing a tail toward higher values and a maximum value of 3.10 ppm in a bench of the Coalburg coal. Ytterbium is a rare earth element present in minor amounts in the mineral monazite that correlated poorly with ash yield, but correlated well with several of the other rare earth elements, especially lutetium (Lu), europium (Eu), samarium (Sm), cerium (Ce), terbium (Tb), lanthanum (La) and erbium (Er). Vanadium also correlated well with several ash related elements such as scandium (Sc), thorium (Th), yttrium (Y), chromium (Cr), vanadium (V), lead (Pb), gallium (Ga) and lithium (Li).

**Spearman Correlation Coefficients (r) with Ytterbium**
Ash Yield	Lu	Eu	Sc	Sm	Th	Y	Ce
+0.5417	+0.9324	+0.8705	+0.8568	+0.8256	+0.7482	+0.7421	+0.7387
n = 547	n = 502	n = 536	n = 547	n = 537	n = 529	n = 547	n = 542
Cr	V	La	Pb	Er	Ga	Ta	Li
+0.7240	+0.7146	+0.7100	+0.7030	+0.6907	+0.6543	+0.6300	+0.6162
n = 546	n = 546	n = 544	n = 544	n = 206	n = 546	n = 458	n = 547

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Page last revised: March 1, 2002

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