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Mechanisms and Measurement of Fluvial-Coal Transport

Mechanisms and Measurement of Fluvial-Coal Transport. Coal Mining and the Aquatic Environment Abingdon, VA, Sept. 6-7, 2007 John R. Gray (jrgray@usgs.gov) USGS Office of Surface Water Reston, Virginia. COAL MINING & THE AQUATIC ENVIRONMENT ?Fluvial Coal Transport/Fate?.

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Mechanisms and Measurement of Fluvial-Coal Transport

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  1. Mechanisms and Measurement of Fluvial-Coal Transport Coal Mining and the Aquatic Environment Abingdon, VA, Sept. 6-7, 2007 John R. Gray (jrgray@usgs.gov) USGS Office of Surface Water Reston, Virginia

  2. COAL MINING & THE AQUATIC ENVIRONMENT?Fluvial Coal Transport/Fate? • “Coal…is observed in the riverbed for months…but seems to disappear for a long time” • “How and where coal moves in river systems?” • “How to know where coal moves?” (Braven Beaty, 5/2007 email)

  3. COAL MINING & THE AQUATIC ENVIRONMENTErgo, My Overview: • Overview of mechanisms, fluvial-sediment transport • Coal movement and storage in streams as a special case of fluvial-sediment transport • Suspended-sediment and bedload measurement – equipment and techniques • USGS-BLM Coal-Hydrology Program, 1974-1984

  4. NICKEL PRIMER ON FLUVIAL SEDIMENTOLOGY

  5. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SEDIMENT • Density (mass per unit volume). • wood <1 • water 1.0 (pure, 4° C) • coal0.9-1.4 (~1.3, eastern U.S. coal – W. Orem) • quartz & feldspar ~2.65 (prevalent minerals in nature) • iron 7.9 • lead 11.4 • mercury 13.5 • gold 19.3

  6. Categories of Sediment Transport

  7. 2 mm Sands 0.062 mm Silts 0.002 mm Clays

  8. Box Coefficient (BC) = Cmean/Cpoint Cmean = ~930 mg/l BC=~1.1 BC=~1.1 BC=1.03 BC=~1 Culbertson et al., 1964

  9. Box Coefficient (BC) = Cmean/Cpoint Cmean = ~1,360 mg/l BC=~5 BC=~4 Mean Values BC=~1.7 BC=~1.5 Culbertson et al., 1964

  10. Measuring Coal TransportUsing FISP Sediment Samplers ►Suspended Sediment: - Isokinetic samplers deployed by flow-weighting techniques of the Federal Interagency Sedimentation Project - Pumping samplers - Turbidity and other surrogate techniques might work*. ►Bedload: US BLH-84 or US BL-84 bedload samplers deployed by Equal-Width or Unequal-Width Techniques►Bottom Material: US BM or US BMH bottom-material samplers, or if material larger than medium gravel, Cooper Scooper, pipe dredge, or another ‘bulk-sampling’ technique

  11. Sampled & Unsampled Zoneswith an Isokinetic Sampler

  12. FISP TM US D-74

  13. FISP TM US D-96

  14. FISP TM US BL-84

  15. U.S. BMH-80

  16. U.S. BM-54

  17. The Cooper Scooper 36 x 23 x 28 cm 16 kg dry weight Contact Michael Singer, bliss@bren.ucsb.edu (Singer, Cepello, Henderson, 2006, 8FISC, p 328)

  18. The Cooper Scooper (Singer, Cepello, Henderson, 2006, 8FISC, p 328)

  19. Analyzing Coal Samples ►USGS Kentucky Science Center Sediment Laboratory Libby Shreve (eashreve@usgs.gov), Chief Standard sediment-lab services, plus - % coal in bed material, loss-on-ignition►See next plot from Bill Orem, USGS, on % organics in bed material of eastern coal region rivers.

  20. Coal Mussel Study TN/VA/WV Rivers From Bill Orem, USGS, on % organics in bed material of eastern coal region rivers. Mean value excluding 14.8% outlier

  21. Predicting Coal Transport ► For bedload, empirical equations such as Meyer-Peter Mueller, Smith-Wiberg, Yalin, Parker, etc. work.Requires sediment density -- OK ►For suspended load, coal-settling velocity must be known. That can be derived for eastern coal -- OK►Both cases, the size distribution of coal bed material must be known. USGS Louisville, Kentucky, Laboratory performs such analyses -- OK “If gravel-size material, should be pretty easy to predict mobility using USGS_MD SWMS Interface – J. Nelson, USGS, Golden, CO” http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3078/

  22. USGS-BLM Coal-Hydrology Program, 1974-1984 ►Collect information and study hydrologic processes related to development and mining of coal.►More than 500 reports produced.►West Virginia: “A mined basin sediment yield was 240X > unmined (Parker, PP 1464, p. 157). Statistics also for VA, TN, KY that show as mined area increases, sediment yields increase.

  23. USGS-BLM Coal-Hydrology Program, 1974-1984

  24. USGS-BLM Coal-Hydrology Program, 1974-1984 Parker, USGS Professional Paper 1464, p. 159

  25. COAL MINING & THE AQUATIC ENVIRONMENTGood News!: Measuring and estimating coal transport • Wealth of historical information from the USGS-BLM Coal-Hydrology Program that might be ‘mined’ before considering more data collection. • Wealth of capabilities for monitoring sediment transport; specific coal-monitoring protocols needed. • Modeling capabilities appear to be up-to-the-task. Thanks for loaning me your ears and eyes…

  26. The END?

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