Trace Elements in West Virginia Coals

Elemental Geographic Distribution Example

The geographic distribution of trace elements in all West Virginia coals are shown.  These maps show geographic distribution of a single trace element in ppm on a whole coal basis for all coals in West Virginia.  Each point represents a single analysis, regardless of which coal bed the sample originated from.  Despite being a geographic distribution, the resulting map has stratigraphic attributes, in that samples from the southern part of the state are generally Lower and Middle Pennsylvanian coals and samples from the north are Upper Pennsylvanian in age. A few trends show that elemental concentrations vary geographically and are not related to the geologic age of the coal, but to or some other factor such as rank.