Seatearth

Seatearth is a British coal mining term, which is used in the geological literature. As noted by Jackson, a seatearth is the layer of sedimentary rock underlying a coal seam. Seatearths have also been called seat earth, "seat rock", or "seat stone" in the geologic literature. Depending on its physical characteristics, a number of different names, such as underclay, fireclay, flint clay, and ganister can be applied to a specific seatearth.

Underclay is a seatearth composed of soft, dispersible clay or other fine-grained sediment, either immediately underlying or forming the floor of a coal seam. Underclay typically contains the fossil roots and exhibits noticeably developed soil structures. It often has been altered by weathering. Underclays, which occur within Carboniferous coal measures, commonly contain Stigmarian roots. Synonyms for underclay included seat clay, root clay, thill, warrant, coal clay, and warrant clay

Underclays typically show considerable evidence of having been altered by plant activity and soil forming processes and are either in whole or part buried soils, called paleosols. As documented in various detailed studies of underclays, underclays and seat earths typically exhibit features characteristics of soil profile development. Depending on the specific underclay, these soil features can include some combination of pedogenic slickensides, pedogenic ped structures, illuviated clay pore fillings, different types of pedogenic microfabrics, rhizocretions, caliche nodules, root molds, and soil horizons. In the better-developed paleosols, significant alteration of the mineralogy, i.e. leaching and translocation of alkali and alkaline earth elements and the kaolinitization of smectites and hydroxy-interlayer vermiculite, will have occurred. In poorly developed paleosols, as seen in the soil profiles of modern poorly developed soils, called "Inceptisols", of modern river deltas and floodplains, there might not exist any noticeable alteration of the underclay.

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