Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1989

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Geology

Major Professor

Otto C. Kopp

Committee Members

Don W. Byerly, Steven G. Driese

Abstract

The Jellico coal of the Breathitt Formation (Middle Pennsyivanian) is a high-volatile B bituminous coal that has been extensively mined in northeast Tennessee. The Jellico has been used as a stratigraphic datum for the correlation of other seams in the area; however, these correlations have been complicated by the use of other names for the Jellico coal in adjacent areas.

This study was undertaken within the southern Appalachian coal field of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee to develop a paleodepositional model for the Jellico and to resolve several ambiguities related to presumed equivalent seams. The areal distribution of the Jellico was determined and its stratigraphic, geological, and geochemical characteristics are shown in appropriate maps and cross-sections.

The most prominent structural feature of the area is the Pine Mountain thrust sheet. Stratigraphic cross-sections were constructed throughout the study area and extend across the thrust sheet. The lateral movement (estimated to be 70,000 feet) of the Pine Mountain overthrust was taken into account in constructing the cross sections. The stratigraphic cross-sections reveal that the Jellico horizon thickens to the southeast and northeast and that there are several seams (labeled A through F) within the Jellico horizon. Stratigraphically, the A seam is the lowest and the F seam is the highest. The total thickness of the Jellico (from the base of the A seam to the top of the F seam) ranges from 40 to 140 feet.

Palinspastic isopach, structure contour, and proximate analysis maps of the Jellico horizon suggest that the underlying lithology and V paleotopography influenced both coal thickness and quality. The A seam, which was recognized in only two quadrangles on the Pine Mountain thrust sheet, is very thin and discontinuous. The accumulation of the B and C seams was influenced by underlying topographic highs and lows depending on the position and thickness of the underlying Newcomb Sandstone. A topographic ridge that influenced peat accumulations also influenced the extent of a marine incursion during the time of C seam accumulation. All of the Jellico seams are generally low in sulfur (range 0.19% to 2.77%) and low in ash (range 1.74% to 28.62%) except for the southwestern portion of the C seam horizon where sulfur reaches concentrations greater that 5 percent and ash attains concentrations greater than 40 percent. In this southwestern region, the C seam chemistry was influenced by the marine incursion. The D, E, and, F seams do not exhibit any characteristics of a marine encroachment, but they do thin and thicken in response to the distribution and characteristics of underlying lithologies and paleotopographies. The underlying lithologies were also influenced by paleotopography.

The character of the Jellico coal horizon was also influenced by the effects of tectonic activity on the depositional environment. The Appalachian orogeny was the primary tectonic event on the study area at that time. A lower delta-plain environment was present in the relatively stable northwest while a transitional lower delta-plain environment was present in the subsiding region to the southeast and northeast. The coal seams of the Jellico horizon are thicker and more numerous in those areas that subsided the most.

The other names used for the Jellico seam (Mingo, Log Mountain, VI Westbourne, White Oak, Pruden, State, Brushy Mountain, and Petros) are for the most part, equivalent. However, two of the terms comonly used as Jellico synonyms, the Kent and the Mason, are not equivalent. Their true positions lie approximately 450 feet and 650 feet below the Jellico horizon, respectively.

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