by Glenn B. Stracher Thursday, January 5, 2012
The growing interest in coal fires has led to the largest collection of peer-reviewed publications about this topic ever undertaken for publication, which includes the work of scientists and engineers around the world interested in peat, the precursor of coal, and peat fires. This project has resulted in a four-volume book, entitled “Coal and Peat Fires: A Global Perspective,” to be published later this year by Elsevier. It will include an interactive online world map of coal and peat fires. The entire set will be published in both hard copy and online editions, and Elsevier is developing a website devoted entirely to the book itself.
Furthermore, in recent years, the increasing global interest in coal fires has resulted in numerous symposia and conferences dedicated to bringing together multiple disciplines to try to solve the coal-fires problem. These symposia generated peer-reviewed special publications dedicated entirely to coal fires, including the 2004 special edition of the International Journal of Coal Geology, entitled “Coal Fires Burning Around the World: A Global Catastrophe,” and the 2007 book published by the Geological Society of America, “Reviews in Engineering Geology XVIII: Geology of Coal Fires: Case Studies from Around the World.”
These special publications each contain a diverse number of articles about coal fires on topics that range from the geophysical and mineralogical effects of combustion to coal fires and government policy. The range of topics demonstrates, as have symposia presentations, the interdisciplinary nature of coal-fires research.
© 2008-2021. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the expressed written permission of the American Geosciences Institute is expressly prohibited. Click here for all copyright requests.