Coal Mines of India

Coal is the most important and abundant fossil fuel in India. It meets 65 per cent of the country's energy requirements. The indigenous coal provided the foundation for the country's industrial legacy and India aims to become a $5 trillion economy by 2025.

India's coal deposits are found in the olderGondwana formationsof peninsular India and the newertertiary formationsof the northeastern area.

The Gondwanas are India's primary coal-bearing formations. Nearly98 per centof India's coal deposits are found inGondwana rocks(which is in the Satpuras)and is found in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

Permian Gondwana coals are mostly found in India's Peninsular Gondwana basins.

Damodar Valleyalso known as the 'Ruhr of India',is located in theChhota Nagpur Plateau. It contains vast tracts of coal resources stretching from Jharkhand to West Bengal in its centre basin.

Coal is a carbon-based substance that is well-known for its usage as a fossil fuel. Other elements contained in coal with lesser percentages are sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen.Over hundreds of millions of years, dead plant matter buried in swamp environments is subjected to geological forces of heat and pressure, resulting in the formation of coal.Plant matter degrades over time from moist, low-carbon peat.  Then, the heat and pressure generated by the ejection of carbon dioxide, water, and methane then transform it into coal, energy- and carbon-dense black or brownish-blacksedimentary rock.This process is known ascoalification.

India's major coal resources are found in seams separated by sedimentary strata. In certain circumstances, the coal strata may be found at or very close to the Earth's surface. In other situations, they might be thousands of feet underground. Coal seams are often a little thicker than 3 to 200 feet (1 to 60 metres).

Jharkhand > Odisha > Chhattisgarh > West Bengal > Madhya Pradesh.