Coals mining an imperative necessity with environmental side effects like any other extraction and production process.

Coal mining is one of Africa’s most dependant features for the continents economy as a whole. This essay uncovers the controversial intriguing topic of coal mining and the effect it has on the environment through the implications of acid mine drainage.  From South Africa across the globe acid mine drainage is a complex environmental issue which has been highlighted and forgotten by the media.

Coal is a black graphite fossil fuel, which is composed by a variety of compounds originating from prehistoric vegetation and carbonized fibers that originally accumulated in swamps and peat bogs. (World Coal Association. 2012). Coal is categorized as a fuel that essentially means it is made up of energy. This energy comes from the process called photosynthesis. Millions of years ago plants would have absorbed energy from the sun and over time died. When decaying plants are unable to release the energy and this intern is favorable to coal formation.

According to the World Coal Association the first documented coal deposits were formed during the “ Carboniferous Period – known as the first coal age which was about 290 to 360 million years ago.”  During this time there were great changes in the earths formation. Movement in the earths crust and a build up of slit and other sediments buried swamps and peat blogs.  This development “caused physical and chemical changes in the vegetation, transforming it into pleat and then into coal. (Word Coal Association. 2012).