The Farmville Basin was one of the

Eastern North America Rift Basins The Eastern North America Rift Basins are a series of sediment-filled '' aborted rifts'' created by large-scale continental extension. Their positions closely mirror the eastern coast of North America. Sediments and volcanic material from the rift ...

. It lies west of

Virginia State Route 45 State Route 45 (SR 45) is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. The state highway runs from the junction of U.S. Route 15 Business (US 15 Business) and US 460 Business in Farmville north to SR 6 at Georges Tavern. SR 45 is ...

and includes

Farmville, Virginia Farmville is a town in Prince Edward and Cumberland counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 8,216 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Prince Edward County. Farmville developed near the headwaters of the Appomattox ...

Farmville Basin Diagram from Virginia DMME

Extent

The Farmville Basin lies in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

spreading North from

Farmville ''FarmVille'' is a series of agriculture-simulation social network game developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to '' Happy Farm'' and ''Farm Town''. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plowi ...

, through

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic counties of England, historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th c ...

from modern day Cumberland State Forest to Briery Creek with a little bit in

Buckingham Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of ...

Farmville Basin Geology

The combined continents of Africa and the Americas split apart from the combined continent of Pangea during the

Triassic Period The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

. A small rift was opened in the

area into which water flowed and allowed for wetland life. The wetland life was later covered with sediment forming clay, and the pressure formed soft,

Bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the seams. It ...

over hundreds of millions of years. Coal beds in the Triassic Basin near

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, Californi ...

and

were formed 205 to 245 million years ago, when

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea () was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million y ...

was splitting up rather than colliding. In the Triassic Basin, pressure to convert organic plant material into coal came from just the weight of overlying sediments, without

tectonics Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...

. That is why the local coal is bituminous, rather than semi-

anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...

Farmville Basin Mining

Coal was mined in the Briery Creek Watershed near Prince Edward Courthouse from as early as 1834 and by the Piedmont Mining Company in the 1860s. Daddow and Bannon, in 1866, described seven or eight coal seams ranging from 0.5 to 3.0 feet thick every 300 feet. They also reported that natural anthracite in some places. The individual

seams Seam may refer to: Science and technology * Seam (geology), a stratum of coal or mineral that is economically viable; a bed or a distinct layer of vein of rock in other layers of rock * Seam (metallurgy), a metalworking process the joins the end ...

were irregular and contained

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formul ...

and other impurities. So mining was not as efficient as in the mountains of Virginia with huge seams.

Clays for Brick Making

Triassic Clays are not so abundant but the clays of the Farmville Basin show some plasticity. Certain ones like those tested from Farmville would do for the manufacture of hollow brick. The clay was a good red color at the surface but had too much mica a few feet down. Some clays in the basin make bricks as hard as steel. Some brick making was done in the basin the 1870s.

References

{{Reflist Sedimentary basins of North America