Revegetation of Illinois Coal Stripped Lands

Abstract

Areas in Illinois were bared by coal stripping operations as early as i866, but development of the industry, an interesting account of which appeared in the Coal Catalog ('26), was delayed until the invention of the large revolving stripping shovel in i9ii. The present rapid expansion of the industry and consequent increase in waste lands present an important and interesting problem in conservation. The ecological study here reported represents an attempt to attack the problem from the standpoint of the natural revegetation of these waste lands. Culver ('25) estimated the total area in Illinois available for stripping at 287 square miles. His map of the distribution of these areas is reproduced as figure I. They occur along the margin of the coal field, with the exception of certain valleys where erosion has removed a part of the overburden. Commercial stripping operations are now in progress in Vermilion. Williamson, Perry, Fulton, Saline, Jackson, Richland, and St. Clair Counties. A check by the writer in I926 indicated an accumulation of probably 3,000 acres of land laid waste in the process. Prior to stripping, these lands were generally in cultivation; although portions of the valley strippings, especially in Vermilion County, were forested. These forests in Vermilion County have been described by McDougall ('I8b). The material which overlies the coal and which goes to make up the ridges is highly variable both in thickness and in character. It presents a complex of preglacial, glacial, and postglacial action, and no one profile may be aiven as representative of the overburden within a single mine, much less throughout the stripping fields of the state. Essentially the same types of strata are present above all of the coal beds 1 of the state now being stripped, although there is considerable variation in the proportion and arrangement. Figure 2 presents something of the nature and variations of the strata commonly present. The stripping shovel deposits the overburden material in the from of long parallel ridges commonly known as spill banks. Irregular action of the stripping shovel results in unequal mixing of the strata and leaves