Coal-shale-sandstone in the Mississippian of Virginia, USA. (geologist for scale - near the lower left corner)

This is the best outcrop anywhere of the only economically significant Mississippian-aged coals in the world. The beds were structurally tilted during the Allegheny Orogeny in the Pennsylvanian.

The coal bed in the left part of the photo is the Langhorne Coal. Just below it (to the left) is a hard sandstone. Stratigraphically above the Langhorne Coal (to the right of it) is a mudshale-dominated interval. The second coal bed (at right) is the Merrimac Coal. Above that is mudshale.

The Langhorne and Merrimac intervals are both semi-anthracite coals - they have experienced very low grade metamorphism. Adjacent beds (shales and sandstones) are not metamorphosed.

Both coal intervals have been mined in the past.

Stratigraphy: uppermost lower member & lowermost upper member, Price Formation, Osagean Stage, upper Lower Mississippian

Locality: roadcut on the eastern side of Rt. 100, western end of Cloyds Mountain, south of the town of Poplar Hill, Pulaski County, Valley Coalfield, southwestern Virginia, USA (= locality shown in figure 9 of Bartholomew & Brown, 1992) (37° 10' 42.39" North latitude, 80° 42' 48.48" West longitude)

Some info. from:

Bartholomew, M.J. & K.E. Brown. 1992. The Valley Coalfield (Mississippian age) in Montgomery and Pulaski Counties, Virginia. Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 124. 33 pp. 2 pls.