On brown coal resources in the Lower Rhine embayment (West Germany)

Abstract

The Tertiary brown coal resources in the Lower Rhine Embayment amount to 55,000 million tons. The open-cast mining operations under way or at the planning stage ensure an annual production of 115-120 million tons over a period of the next 75 years. The brown coal mainly serves to generate electrical energy. At present about 150-250 m of overburden have to be removed to get at the brown coal. In future this may increase up to 500 m. The maximum thickness of the brown coal is about 100 m. The brown coal beds provide data about: - a basin-shaped subsidence of the embayment during the Miocene. No major block faulting occurred during the main period of peat accumulation. - peat compaction. 100 m of brown coal (under an overburden of 500 m) might correspond to 250 m of peat. - a Pre-Rhine river system during the main period of peat accumulation. - the perennial effectiveness of some Palaeozoic structural elements.