www.elsevier.com/locate/ijcoalgeo

International Journal of Coa

Editorial

Marlies Teichmqller Symposium Volume

A symposium was held during the International

Committee for Coal and Organic Petrology (ICCP)

meeting in Copenhagen on Sunday 19 August 2001 to

remember the contributions of Marlies Teichmqller tocoal science and more generally to geological science.

Following her death, a number of tributes were

published relating to Marlies Teichmqller and the

R&M Teichmqller prize is awarded by the German

Geological Society to commemorate her work. The

ICCP symposium was arranged as an indication of the

respect and affection held for her by the ICCP.

Teichmqller was effectively a founding member of

ICCP and worked tirelessly for the organization.

Many commission secretaries have memories of the

intense interest she took in the coming meetings and

her attention to detail of the results of discussions. She

was also superbly organized in relation to her

contributions and it was usual to receive a letter

presenting a tightly argued case supporting her views,

even for meetings where she was going to be present.

No detail was too fine to escape the attention of

Marlies.

References to a number of the many appreciations

that have been written about Marlies Teichmqller areincluded in the paper by Lyons and Cross (this

volume). This paper also includes citations of a

number of important papers by her. References to a

number of her papers on brown coals are cited in the

paper on the classification of huminite (this volume).

Seven invited papers were presented and five of

these are included in this volume. Authors were

invited having in mind a desire to cover at least some

of the areas of research that had been the subject of

Teichmqller’s research. This volume presents the

0166-5162/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.coal.2004.08.001

papers that progressed to written form. We are also

taking the opportunity to include a revision of the

nomenclature for huminite, Marlies Teichmqller hav-ing been the convener of the Working Group that led

to the original development of nomenclature for

huminite. Geoffrey Taylor chaired the Working Group

that commenced the current revision, but handed over

to the group listed in the authorship of the revision.

Duncan Murchison is a past President of ICCP and

was Treasurer over an important period of ICCP. He

also made major contributions to both the original

glossary publications and their reprinting. His paper

presents a summary of the development of coal

petrology and other aspects of coal science in and

around Newcastle upon Tyne, England, over a period

of bapproximately 175Q years. This gives greater detailof many aspects of the work of a number of those

associated with Newcastle ranging from the mid 19th

Century and the boghead controversy to the present

where organic petrology forms a part of an Institute

with a heavy emphasis on chemistry. This paper

complements an earlier historical paper by Duncan

that was published in the Proceedings of the Royal

microscopical society in 1979 entitled bButcher,baker, candlestickmaker but organic petrologists allQ.Duncan was largely responsible for the development

of the Organic Geochemistry Unit at Newcastle upon

Tyne that was heir to a long history of earlier work. As

he explains, reorganization of teaching in the earth

sciences has left the successor organization (Institute

of Fossil Fuels and Organic Geochemistry—FFEGI)

at a University that now does not have an under-

graduate course in geology. Thus, this paper reviews

the past but also indicates some of the problems of

l Geology 62 (2005) 1–3

Editorial2

maintaining strong teaching programs in organic

petrology in the face of institutional change.

Alan Davis, also a past-President of ICCP,

presented a paper on behalf of Gareth D. Mitchell,

Alan Davis and Subhash Chander on the phenom-

enon of photo-oxidation—that is the alteration that

occurs on, or in, coal surfaces when they are

irradiated with light. In these experiments, the

excitation beam used for fluorescence examination.

Most of us are familiar with the change in surface

appearance of samples when irradiated—sometimes

known as the coffee effect (or less politically correct

as the cigarette effect) as it is prominent on return to

a petrographic examination if the excitation beam

has been left on while a cup of coffee is prepared.

The authors are able to show that this alteration

causes an increase in oxygen content and changes in

a number of important functional groups. Experi-

ments with contact angles have been used to

determine surface hydrophobicity.

Harold Smith presents work on the use of organic

petrology and palynology on archaeological prob-

lems. Harold also has had an active role in ICCP

from its formation. He served 8 years as Chair of

Commission I, and during that period played a major

role in the development of the Accreditation Program

of ICCP for vitrinite reflectance analyses and

maceral group analysis. Coals and coal-related

materials recovered from archaeological sites form

the basis for the use of coal petrology and

palyonology to solve problems of the origin of the

materials. This also provides information on the

extent of mining and directions of trade. Harold

Smith started the work that is reported in 1960. It

covers materials that range from fuels to jewellery

that were found at sites dating from the Bronze Age

to the time of the Titanic. Dispersal patterns of coals

and jet are investigated over a range of times.

Angelica Vieth, a long-term active member of

ICCP, presented the paper authored by her and K.-H.

Ribbert on coalification analysis used to assess the

geological history of the Northern Eifel in NW

Germany. These authors come from Geologischer

Dienst in Krefeld, the successor organization to the

one from which Marlies Teichmqller made many of

her best known contributions. The paper builds on

work by Teichmqller that shows how organic

petrology can be used in regional mapping and that

the measurement of reflectances of organic constitu-

ents provides a valid basis for such work even for

successions from the lower Paleozoic. The paper

demonstrates that the level of metamorphism of these

successions can be mapped with considerable reso-

lution using organic petrology and that the reflectance

data can be used to reconstruct probable depths of

cover and aspects of burial history that cannot be

approached using normal mineral zoning techniques.

Paul Lyons, an active member of ICCP over a

number of years, and Aureal Cross prepared a talk that

was given during the symposium on their behalf. The

paper in this volume covers some of the more

botanical and historical aspects of the work of Marlies

Teichmqller and her husband Rolf. The authors have a

long association with coal science and worked with a

number of prominent American and German coals

scientists. They bring some of this history to life with

a series of photographs of many of these important

figures. The interaction between the work of Marlies

and Rolf is placed by the authors in a context of some

major advances in the integration of coal studies.

The last section presents a revision of the

classification of the HUMINITE group by ICCP. This

has been prepared over a number of years and is part

of a series of revisions. The first of the revisions was

agreed at the 1994 meeting in Oviedo and the

revisions are identified by a reference of the ICCP

1994 system to distinguish these revisions from the

original descriptions published in the various earlier

editions of the Glossary published by ICCP. Revisions

already published are Vitrinite (Fuel, 77, 348–358),

Inertinite (Fuel, 80, 2001, 459–471), and most

recently, Graphite, semi graphite, natural coke and

natural char classification—ICCP system (Int. J. of

Coal Geology, 57, 2: 99–116). The liptinite sheets

have now been approved by ICCP and should be

published soon. Additionally, ICCP hopes to issue a

new and revised Handbook incorporating these and

other change in the near future.

A working group on maceral classification for

brown coals was followed by the introduction of the

Huminite classification published in the 2nd Supple-

ment to the Glossary (1971). With the revision of the

vitrinite group, it became clear that a revision of the

huminite group was needed. At the 1999 meeting of

ICCP, it was agreed that at the group level, huminite

and vitrinite are essentially synonyms. The Vitrinite

Editorial 3

(1994) revision includes some aspects of a proposal

originally made by Gregory C Smith (1981) in his

PhD thesis (University of Wollongong, unpublished)

that effectively adapted the huminite classification

principles used by Teichmqller into a unified vitrinite

and huminite classification. Smith needed to do this

because he was studying the Latrobe Group in the

Gippsland Basin of SE Australia. This Basin includes

the thick onshore Tertiary brown coals and the

stratigraphically equivalent bituminous coals offshore

where these coal measures occur at greater depths of

burial. The concept of the synonymous use of these

terms was adopted into the ICCP huminite–vitrinite

systems presented here.

Use of a unified system was a point of contention

with Marlies Teichmqller. The present revision indi-

cates the equivalence of the terms between vitrinite

and huminite as well as some of the differences. It is

intended that this will avoid some of the confusion

where coals up to the boundary (commonly a

vitrinite—or huminite—reflectance of 0.50%) contain

huminite as the major maceral group, and above that

contain vitrinite as the major group.

In this introduction, it is also useful to note that the

huminite system was developed originally with an

emphasis on Tertiary lignites. These are, as the

German term dWeichbraunkohlenT (soft brown coals)

indicates, very low in rank and show a low degree of

gelification. Many coals with huminite/vitrinite reflec-

tances in the range of 0.30–0.50% of pre-Tertiary age,

are well gelified. This means that they are more

suitable for the use of the vitrinite system. Equally,

some coals of Tertiary age with vitrinite reflectances

above 0.5% still show some features typical of

huminite. The recent adjustment of the Huminite

and Vitrinite systems allows the parallel use of both

systems.

The huminite system is also widely used in Peat

Petrology.

Alan Cook

Keiraville Konsultants, 7 Dallas Street,

Keiraville, NSW 2500, Australia

E-mail address: alanccook@ozemail.com.au

Corresponding author.

Petra David

Netherlands Institute of Applied Geoscience,

TNO Division of Geo-Energy, P.O. Box 80015,

3508 TA Utretcht, The Netherlands

Walter Pickel

Coal & Organic Petrology Services Pty Ltd.

P.O. Box 174, Sans Souci, NSW 2219, Australia