Question

Describe how coal is formed from dead vegetation. What is this process called?

Answer 1

Hint: Coal is fossil fuel or we can say, fuel that comes from the remains of dead plants or animals. The formation of coal occurs over millions of years via a process known as carbonation. In this process, dead vegetation is converted into coal which is found to be carbon-rich under very high temperature and pressure.

Complete step by step solution:
- Coal is also called as black gold. Now let’s discuss about how coal is formed-
- The formation of coal occurs over millions of years, there were living things like trees, animals were present. So, once they die they basically mix with soil and there are lots of geological changes happening, the land moved, and hence dead matter like plants and animals get deeper and deeper buried in the soil. And due to the extreme pressure and temperature there are a lot of chemical changes taking place and they become carbon compounds and some other compounds like sulphur magnesium salts. And this final compound is what we call coal.
- So we can say, coal is just basically decomposed degraded living matter. Under the earth there is a large percentage of coal, and this fuel is very good fuel, and it can burn very well and can produce lots of energy. If we see the energy consumption of the world, then coal provides almost about 30-40% of energy consumption.
- As we know that coal is mined from deep inside the ground, at that time there were different types of coal present, as it is formed from different chemical processes. As longer it stays below the ground, more is the purest form of coal formed, pure in terms of carbon content, coal that has more carbon content is in more pure form. And hence, based on its carbon content there are different types of coal found.
- We can classify it into main four types, that are-
 Peat, lignite, bituminous, and anthracite.
-Hence, we can say that coal is formed by the process called carbonation.

Additional Information:
-We can see that there are various uses of coal like-
- We know that coal is a typical conventional solid fuel that was used as an important source of fuel by humankind for thousands of years.
- The simplest use of coal is to burn it for heat. It was once used as a household heating and cooking fuel in Western countries.
- The main use of coal is that it is used widely as fuel for electric power plants.

Note: - It is found that due to natural processes various dense forests got buried under the soil, millions of years ago. And as time passed by more and more soil got deposited over them and hence, they got compressed more. This process leads them to get exposed to very high temperature and pressure. And under these extreme conditions they slowly got converted into coal. So we can say that this whole process of formation of coal from dead vegetation is known as carbonation.