An Essay on the Organic Geochemistry of Coal

A Review of Macromolecular Organic Compounds That Comprise Living Organisms and Their Role in Kerogen, Coal, and Petroleum Formation

“…Because large levels of PAC are commonly observed in higher plants, PAC should therefore provide a substantial contribution to land-derived sedimentary organic matter. Indeed, it has been suggested that PAC could be considered, in addition to cellulose and lignin, as a major source of the maceral vitrinite (Stach et 01., 1982;Given, 1984). A recent study using solid-state 13C NMR (Wilson and Hatcher, 1988) indicated an important level of tannins in barks isolated from brown coals.…”

Types and chemical composition of organic matter in reforested lignite-rich mine soils

“…With increasing rank, the aromaticity of coal increases (Smith et al, 1993). The different formation histories of coal are responsible for lhe fact that coals are a very diverse set of material (Given, 1984). Compared to lignite, modero soil organic matter contains large amollOts of polysaccharide material.…”

On the fundamental difference between coal rank and coal type

“…In general, macerals increase in aromaticity from liptinite to vitrinite to inertinite (Dyrkacz et al, 1981;Given, 1984;Hatcher and Clifford, 1996;Hower et al, 1994a;Maroto-Valer et al, 1998;Mastalerz and Bustin, 1993b;Nip et al, 1992;Rimmer et al, 2006;Stankiewicz et al, 1996;Walker and Mastalerz, 2004). Therefore, the maceral groups respond differently to the coalification processes, as demonstrated in Fig.…”

“…Plants produce essential oils (De Alwis et al, 2009;López et al, 2007), alkaloids (Holmes et al, 2008), enzymes, lignin (Panov and Terziev, 2009), terpenoids (Bednarek and Osbourn, 2009;Collado et al, 2007;De Alwis et al, 2009;Dutta et al, 2009), or tannins (Exarchos and Given, 1977;Given, 1984;Given et al, 1983) as protection against microbes. Fungi alter their environment by producing antibiotics (Bose, 1953;Holding and Franklin, 1965;Waksman, 1944;Wallace and Dickinson, 1978;among others) or by re-using terpenoids against other fungal species (Rikkinen and Poinar, 2000).…”