Gerencher's D. Ed. Thesis

Thesis title:  Multivariate Study of the Interrelationships Among Selected Variables of the Organic Fraction of Samples of United States' Coals

Click to see illustrations of
    samples by province and rank
    summary statistics for each variable
   

The results of the study were presented as a paper at the 18th Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America in Kiamesha Lake, New York on March 24, 1983.  The abstract for the paper, written with Alan Davis, thesis co-advisor, appears below:

Multivariate Study of the Interrelationships Among Selected Variables of the Organic Fraction of Samples of United States' Coals
    Multivariate statistical techniques have been used to study interrelationships among 12 variables within a data set for 277 coals representing whole-seam channel, column, and core samples obtained from each of the 6 coal provinces of the United States, and varying in rank from lignite to anthracite.  The data are maintained in a computerized data base at the Pennsylvania State University Coal Research Section.   The variables chosen are components of the elemental analysis, volatile matter, moisture, calorific value, reflectance of vitranite, and the relative proportions of the 3 maceral groups.
    Factor analysis indicated that rank, maceral composition and organic sulfur content are the most important sources of variation for the entire data set and for 4 subsets obtained by cluster analysis.  Factor analysis of 5 classifications of coal grouped by ASTM rank and of coals grouped by province provided insights into the coalification processes of these coal associations.
    Analysis of variance indicated the following:  within the Eastern Province older coals have attained a higher rank than younger coals;  the coals from the Eastern, Interior, and Rocky Mountain Provinces for which more than 1 sample was obtained from individual mines have an inhomogeneous within-mine variance; and Interior Province coals of the hvb rank range are significantly higher in moisture and lower in reflectance than coals of similar rank from other provinces, but within the mvb rank range Interior Province coals differ only in that they possess significantly lower reflectances.
   

Click to see the following from the thesis  (These pages were scanned using Optical Character Recognition [OCR] and may contain some formatting irregularities and some misidentified characters):
    the abstract
    the table of contents
    the summary, conclusions, and recommendations for further study