Abstract

Critical analysis of modern wetlands suggest that numerous misconceptions consistently appear in the literature describing the peat forming environments proposed as precursors to the anomalously thick coal deposits of the Powder River Basin. Included are the well drained swamp, protection of the swamp by levees, ground water moving up through the peat to provide nutrients, a sand platform as a necessary condition for thick peat development, and accumulation of hundreds of ft of peat prior to coalification.

Any model explaining the presence of the extraordinarily thick coals of the Powder River Basin must be based upon sound sedimentology and thus should not be dependent upon any of the above "misconceptions." Current proposed models for the depositional environments of the necessarily thick peats are critiqued. Experience in modern swamps, marshes, and bogs of all kinds leads the author to an alternative model based in part upon the Okefenokee swamp: a model requiring tectonically influenced interaction between lacustrine and swamp environments. Fluvial systems and deltas are relegated to minor roles as required by the conditions for the accumulation of thick low ash peat.