Wa. Dimichele et al., A DROWNED LYCOPSID FOREST ABOVE THE MAHONING COAL (CONEMAUGH GROUP, UPPER PENNSYLVANIAN) IN EASTERN OHIO, USA, International journal of coal geology, 31(1-4), 1996, pp. 249-276
Citations number
41
Categorie Soggetti
Mining & Mineral Processing","Geosciences, Interdisciplinary","Energy & Fuels
Over 800 mud-filled casts of upright lycopsid tree stumps have been do
cumented immediately above the Mahoning coal in an active underground
mine located in northwestern Jefferson County, Ohio. The coal body ori
ginated as a pod-shaped peat body of similar to 60 km(2). Trees are ro
oted at several levels within a thin (15-40 cm) bone coal directly abo
ve the banded coal; they extend upward up to 15 cm into overlying, fla
t-bedded, carbonaceous mudstones that coarsen up. From a maximum basal
diameter of 1.2 m, stumps taper upward to diameters no less than 0.3
m. Within single-entry transects, < 6 m wide that total 2585 m in leng
th, stumps are randomly distributed. The trees are identified as lepid
odendrids on the basis of gross morphology, external stem patterns, an
d attached stigmarian root systems, and provisionally as Lepidophloios
or Lepidodendron by associated palynology of the enclosing matrix. Pa
lynological analyses of incremental seam samples indicate an initial d
ominance of lycopsid spores with lepidodendracean affinities (Lycospor
a granulata from Lepidophloios hallii), replaced upwards by tree-fern
spores, with a reoccurrence of lepidodendracean spores in the upper be
nches; spores of Sigillaria (Crassispora) are abundant only at the bas
e of the coal. Petrographic analyses indicate a parallel trend from vi
trinite-rich to inertinite- and liptinite-rich upward in the coal body
. All data indicate that the peat represented by the Mahoning coal was
drowned slowly. During the earliest stages of inundation, a lycopsid
forest was re-established, only to be subsequently drowned.