Anthracite Coal Mining: "Black Sunlight" circa 1920s Bray Studios

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• published: 07 Apr 2013
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more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/ "On anthracite coal mining--with animation showing how coal was created underground--Pan over valley in anthracite region of Pennsylvania -- strip mining deep mining--mining footage -- cars of crude coal to breaker removing waste from coal -- pile of tailing -- sizing of coal pieces loading on railroad cars -- pan over loaded railcars, trains rolling." Silent. Earth Sciences, mining, oil, etc. playlist:: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL33B1A9216BB65F7A Public domain film from the Prelinger Archive, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthracite Anthracite... is a hard, compact variety of mineral coal that has a high luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest calorific content of all types of coals, which also include bituminous coal and lignite. Anthracite is the most metamorphosed type of coal (but still represents low-grade metamorphism), in which the carbon content is between 92.1% and 98%... Anthracite ignites with difficulty and burns with a short, blue, and smokeless flame. Anthracite is categorized into standard grade, which is used mainly in power generation, and high grade (HG) and ultra high grade (UHG), the principal uses of which are in the metallurgy sector. Anthracite accounts for about 1% of global coal reserves, and is mined in only a few countries around the world. China accounts for the lion's share of production; other producers are Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Vietnam, the UK, Australia and the US. Total production in 2010 was 670 million tons... Terminology Other terms which refer to anthracite are black coal, hard coal, stone coal (not to be confused with the German Steinkohle or Dutch steenkool which are broader terms meaning all varieties of coal of a stonelike hardness and appearance, like bituminous coal and often anthracite as well, as opposed to lignite, which is softer), blind coal (in Scotland), Kilkenny coal (in Ireland), crow coal (or craw coal from its shiny black appearance), and black diamond. "Blue Coal" is the term for a once-popular and trademarked brand... Anthracite is similar in appearance to the mineraloid jet and is sometimes used as a jet imitation. Anthracite differs from ordinary bituminous coal by its greater hardness, its higher relative density of 1.3--1.4, and lustre, which is often semi-metallic with a mildly brown reflection. It contains a high percentage of fixed carbon and a low percentage of volatile matter... The moisture content of fresh-mined anthracite generally is less than 15 percent. The heat content of anthracite ranges from 22 to 28 million Btu per short ton (26 to 33 MJ/kg) on a moist, mineral-matter-free basis... Anthracite may be considered to be a transition stage between ordinary bituminous and graphite, produced by the more or less complete elimination of the volatile constituents of the former... History of mining and use In southwest Wales, anthracite has been burned as a domestic fuel since at least medieval times. It was mined near Saundersfoot. In the United States, anthracite coal history began in 1790 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, with the discovery of coal made by the hunter Necho Allen in what is now known as the Coal Region... By 1795, an anthracite-fired iron furnace had been built on the Schuylkill River... In spring 1808, John and Abijah Smith shipped the first commercially mined load of anthracite down the Susquehanna River from Plymouth, Pennsylvania, marking the birth of commercial anthracite mining in the United States. From that first mine, production rose to an all-time high of over 100 million tons in 1917. From the late 19th century until the 1950s, anthracite was the most popular fuel for heating homes and other buildings in the northern United States... Many large public buildings, such as schools, were heated with anthracite-burning furnaces through the 1980s... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and, since the 1880s, has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States, United Kingdom, and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery... Coal mining has had a lot of developments over the recent years, from the early days of men tunneling, digging and manually extracting the coal on carts to large open cut and long wall mines. Mining at this scale requires the use of draglines, trucks, conveyor, jacks and shearers...