On the issue of types of coal basins

Abstract

The issues of genetic classification and typification of coal basins are of great fundamental and practical importance. The value of such a classification will depend on the significance of the principles underlying it, on its applicability in practice and on the possibility of making a more or less complete forecast based on it. Since the appearance of G. A. Ivanov's classification of coal basins, it can be considered established that the geotectonic principle is the first and most essential for genetic subdivisions into large groups. Fifteen years after the appearance of this classification, the study of geotectonic structures now allows us to make a more detailed subdivision based on the same geotectonic principle. However, this does not exclude the possibility and necessity of having other classifications of coal basins for different purposes, based on completely different criteria. For example, basins have long been divided into parallic and limnic based on the ratio of coal-bearing sediments to the proximity of the sea. This is, so to speak, a paleogeographic division. From the point of view of exploration and study, it is important to subdivide coal basins into open, semi-closed and completely closed based on the development and preservation of the rocks covering the coal-bearing strata. For the needs of geophysical work, they can be classified by the nature of tectonic forms, i.e. by the type of dislocations, as P. I. Stepanov does. Basins can be divided into brown coal and hard coal by the quality of coal, and by age into carboniferous, Permian, Jurassic, Tertiary, etc.