Mar 29, 2024  
2018-2019 Undergraduate Bulletin 
    
2018-2019 Undergraduate Bulletin [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

GLY 2301 - The History of Coal from the Pennsylvanian to the Present (3)


When Offered: Spring
GEN ED: Integrative Learning Experience (Theme: “Appalachian Mountains: Community, Culture, and Land”)
Coal has played a critical role in the history of the southern Appalachians. The geologic processes that formed coal and shaped the landscape into the steep ridges and hollows of the Appalachian coalfields have directly affected the human history of the region -from hunting in pre-colonial times, to settlement and subsistence farming in the 1800s, to mining and unionization in the 1900s, to mountaintop removal and natural gas/coalbed methane extraction in the last decade. This course covers the physical and chemical processes that form coal as well as the tectonic and geomorphologic processes that formed the landscape of the coalfields and shaped the agricultural practices of the early settlers. It examines the cultural history of coal mining and life in the company-owned coal camps and the political history of unionization through literature and film. The economics and environmental consequences of coal fired power plants are discussed, and the environmental and occupational hazards associated with both underground and surface coal mining are analyzed from both a scientific and a sociological perspective.
(Same as A S 2301 .) (Global Learning Opportunity course)