Coal resource potential of Afghanistan

Coal exploration in Afghanistan has focused exclusively on expanding the boundaries of the known Jurassic coal deposits. The systematic stratigraphic and sedimentologic studies needed to locate and characterize new prospects in other parts of the country have never been conducted. Exploration strategies are based on received wisdom formulated before tectonic theory developed, and do not incorporate current understanding of the geologic and environmental processes responsible for peat formation and burial. This analysis reassesses existing data and limited new field reconnaissance data using modern tectonic and coal geology concepts to provide a new understanding of Afghanistan’s true coal potential. Afghanistan assembled during the Phanerozoic from a minimum of 11 microcontinental fragments, 5 arc systems, 3 accretionary wedges, and 2 rift systems. An unknown number of additional Precambrian terranes with separate tectonic histories are exposed in the cores of the Phanerozoic microcontinents. All ...