Revisiting Coos Bay, Oregon: A re-examination of funginite-huminite relationships in Eocene subbituminous coals

Jennifer M.K. O'Keefe, James C. Hower

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

Coal petrography has advanced significantly since Reinhardt Theissen and James Schopf pioneered the use of thin sections to examine coals from Coos Bay Oregon, and to many coal petrographers the nomenclature used in that study is irrelevant. The Schopf (1947) study was a ground-breaking examination of maceral relationships that need to be part of the working vocabulary of modern petrographers. To support this, a re-examination of the Coos Bay thin section collection was undertaken, using modern nomenclature for low-rank coals under reflected light. This particular collection was chosen in part because of the abundance of fungal material reported by Schopf. Fungal material in coal and its association with huminite/vitrinite macerals provides important information about the decompositional history of the coal and allows coal dominated by oxic processes to be differentiated from coal dominated by anoxic processes. In the Coos Bay samples, predominantly oxic intervals contain well-preserved fungi, including spores, sclerotia, and hyphae, while anoxic intervals contain no fungi.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)34-42
Number of pages9
JournalInternational Journal of Coal Geology
Volume85
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2011

Keywords

  • Beaver Hill Coal
  • Coos Bay
  • Funginite
  • Middle Eocene
  • Oregon

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Fuel Technology
  • Geology
  • Economic Geology
  • Stratigraphy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Revisiting Coos Bay, Oregon: A re-examination of funginite-huminite relationships in Eocene subbituminous coals'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this