Layers of History

Layers of History. New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. , New River coal, the natural resource that created the gorge's boom and bust economy, is the product of a geologic process millions of years in the making., 300 million years ago, the landscape here was a tropical swamp covered with vegetation. Over time, continental uplift and erosion covered decayed plants and animals. Pressure from overlying layers of sediment transformed these peat bogs into coal buried beneath layers of rock. Generally speaking, every foot of coal represents approximately 10,000 years of continuous peat accumulation. Coal seams in West Virginia average three feet tall. Waters of the ancestral Teays River, today's New River, gradually cut through the Appalachian plateau, carving a corridor and exposing the seam of coal and other rocks you see in the gorge., The "smokeless" bituminous coal from the New River coalfields helped fuel America's industrial revolution. The life cycle of coal does not end with mining, however, but with the burning of coal and the return of its carbon to the atmosphere as fossil fuel emissions. A complicated geological process that took millions of years can be burned in a matter of minutes., Will the environmental consequences of extracting and burning fossil fuels exceed the economic and energy gains we receive from them?, (caption) The ancient Teays River was blocked when the most recent glacial front came through around 24,000 years ago. When the glaciers receded around 14,000 years ago, it revealed the New River flowing in what was the former Teays riverbed.,