THOUGHTS ON THE PROBLEMS OF COAL PETROGRAPHIC NOMENCLATURE IN RELATION TO THE INTERPRETATION OF PEAT (COAL) FORMING ENVIRONMENTS

The idea of coal maceral nomenclature that was first put forward by Marie Stopes and developed through the International Commission for Coal Petrology has played a key role in our international discussions on coal characterization and coal use. However, over the past 30 years there has been increasing interest in the use of such data to interpret the deposition of the original peats both in terms of the vegetation and the detailed depositional environment. It is becoming clear that the current system may not be ‘fit for purpose’ for this task. The present system may not be the only way to describe coals and their environment of formation and the problem of the interpretation of a range of inertinite coal macerals will be used to emphasize the point. The use of a range of coal petrograpic indicies leads to the impression that we know something that we really do not. The only way forward may be to develop a separate system of coal petrographic nomenclature.