BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

 Vol. 20, pp. 333-340 September 15, 1909 



SHOETAGE OF COAL IN THE NOETHEEN APPALACHIAN 



COAL FIELD 1 



(Presented before the Society December 31, 1908) 



BY I. C. WHITE 



CONTENTS 



Page 



The barren area 333 



Extent of reduction of the productive areas 334 



Method of deposition of the coal 335 



Duration of the northern Appalachian field 335 



Present waste of fuel 336 



Danger of catastrophes 337 



Need of conservation 338 



Remedy for the evils of waste 339 



The barren Area 



It was formerly supposed that the several coal formations of the Appa- 

 lachian region would hold coal of commercial value over the entire area 

 of that great field. Your speaker pointed out, many years ago, that this 

 was a grave mistake, so far as the Monongahela and Pottsville series are 

 concerned, and, later, that the Allegheny and Kanawha coals also share 

 the same fate when they pass under water level toward the center of the 

 Appalachian basin; that, instead of a continuous sheet of productive 

 Coal Measures underlying this entire field, there is a great barren zone 

 which in the Allegheny series begins a few miles north from Pittsburg, 

 and, embracing most of Allegheny county, a large portion of Westmore- 

 land, practically all of Washington, Greene, and western Fayette, as well 

 as southern Beaver, passes southwestward entirely across West Virginia 

 and southeastern Ohio, thus reducing enormously the productive area of 

 the Allegheny series and its usually estimated coal resources. 



The celebrated Pittsburg coal holds its place in the series, however, 

 until we reach Doddridge county, western Wetzel, and eastern Tyler, in 

 West Virginia, when it, too, disappears, except in scattered patches along 

 its eastern crop through Lewis, Braxton, Gilmer, Eoane, Kanawha, and 



1 Manuscript received by the Secretary of the Society August 28, 1909. 

 -This paper was also presented before the American Mining Congress in December, 

 1908, under the title "The Barren Zone of the Northern Appalachian Coal Field." 



XXIX— Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 20, 1908 (333) 



