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Reviews in Engineering Geology, volume 18
Geology of Coal Fires: Case Studies from Around the World is The Geological Society of America’s first publication devoted to “coal-fires science,” an exciting and interdisciplinary area of research gaining international attention in recent years. Coal fires are preserved globally in the rock record as burnt and volume-reduced coal seams and by pyrometamorphic rocks, explosion breccias, clinker, gas-vent-mineral assemblages, fire-induced faulting, ground fissures, slump blocks, and sinkholes. Coal fires are responsible for coronary and respiratory diseases and fatalities in humans, as well as arsenic and fluorine poisoning. The heat energy, toxic fumes, and solid by-products of combustion destroy floral and faunal habitats, while polluting the air, water, and soil. This volume includes chapters devoted to spontaneous combustion and greenhouse gases, gas-vent mineralogy and petrology, paralavas and combustion metamorphic rocks, geochronology and landforms, magnetic signatures and geophysical modeling, remote-sensing detection and fire-depth estimation of concealed fires, as well as coal fires and public policy. |
