Paragraph 1: Coal is one of the wide range of rocks in the world that has specific uses and is one of the world’s major sources of energy. In the “olden days” …show more content…
It is mainly composed of carbon and is formed from plants. Layers from these plants pile on top of each other after rotting in swamps. Because there were so many swamps, there were massive amounts of plants such as moss, reeds and ferns that survived from the matter in the swamps. After the plants grew and eventually died, the different minerals in the swamp would then help grow new plants making the cycle continuous. Since there were so many plants that decayed, the layers from the plants impacted by water and dirt turned into coal. This occurred from heat and pressure producing chemical and physical changes forcing oxygen to remove itself, leaving carbon deposits. Because coal was formed over millions of years it contains 120 different minerals and 33 common minerals. A few of the minerals that coal contains are quarts, kaolinite, calcite, chlorite, illite, siderite, pyrite and montmorillonite. These minerals that coal contain are very important because without them coal would not be able to be used for all the sources it is used for today. The four types of coal Anthracite, Bituminous, Lignite and Subbituminous all have different ranks, uses and identifications. Anthracite is a black coal that has the highest rank, Bituminous is more of a shiny rock which is the type of coal used as the source of electricity and is the middle ranking coal, Lignite is brown and is the lowest ranking