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Geoscience ›› 2018, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (05): 975-984.DOI: 10.19657/j.geoscience.1000-8527.2018.05.10

• Coalfield Geology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Petrography and Quality Characteristics of Lower-Middle Jurassic Coal Seam in the Southeastern Tarim Basin

WANG Di(), TIAN Jijun(), FENG Shuo, LU Xingyu   

  1. Institute of Geology and Mining Engineering, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, Xinjiang 830047,China
  • Received:2017-08-17 Revised:2018-06-08 Online:2018-10-10 Published:2018-11-04

Abstract:

Petrology and quality of the Lower-Middle Jurassic coal seams in the southeastern margin of the Tarim basin (distributed intermittently along the Altyn Tagh) are very different from the Jurassic coal seams in northwestern China. To characterize these coal seams, various experiments including coal petrography, coal quality identification and coalification index have been conducted on a large amount of coal samples collected from the Hetian Buya, Yutian Pulu and Qiemo Hongliugou coal mines. The results reveal that the main mining layer consists mainly of clarain and semi-bright coal, followed by durain and semi-dull coal. The macerals are mainly characterized by vitrinite, with minor exinite and middle-high V/I. In addition, the total sulfur content in the coal increases with the vitrinite content, due to the lower degree of coal-forming swamp that promotes the formation of inorganic sulfur. Moreover, it is obvious that the content of coal seam sulfur decreases with the ash content. Similarly, the volatile content of coal seam affected by various sulfur contents is significantly different. The analyses also show that the main component of sulfur in the medium-high sulfur coal of the Minfeng sag is inorganic sulfur, and that the volatile fraction increases with increasing sulfur content. However, the productivity of volatile influence of organic sulfur is not obvious in the medium-low sulfur coal in the Washixia sag. It is found that the ash composition index in the coal seam of the Minfeng sag is higher than that of the Washixia sag, which suggests that the water table of the coal-forming swamp of the latter is much higher. Our results confirm that the change of coal petrology and coal quality diversity in the southeastern Tarim basin are controlled by the faulted lacustrine basin and the local water depth in the reducing swamp environment, which led to the medium-high volatility, medium-low ash, medium-low sulfur, and the rich vitrinite-poor inertinite coal features there.

Key words: Tarim basin, Lower-Middle Jurassic, coal petrography, maceral, coal quality

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