A direct relation in trends has been made between the structural deformation of west-central Pennsylvania and two petrographic properties of the Upper Freeport coal. Using samples collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, data for vitrinite reflectance and fixed-carbon percentage were generated and contour maps developed. It was found that the values increased in a near-linear northwest to southeast trend--the same trend as that of increasing regional deformation. Further development and refinement of these kinds of contour maps give the means for coal companies to infer the probable rank of a particular coal in areas where there has not necessarily been extensive analysis. The results and conclusions in this paper point to a possible method of predicting certain optical a d chemical parameters of coals on the basis of their structural history and scattered samples collected in the basin.

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