Anthracite iron Company and its first furnace at Catasauqua, which went into blast in 1840, along with five other anthracite furnaces. This marked the commercial establishment of anthracite iron production in the United States. The opening of bituminous coal deposits suitable for coking in the western part of the Allegheny Plateau resulted in the gradual displacement of anthracite as a fuel. The production of coke-fired furnaces overtook that of anthracite-fired furnaces in 1875, and the last anthracite furnaces in the US, the former Lock Ridge Iron Company, converted to coke in 1914. Anthracite iron Anthracite iron or Anthracite 'Pig Iron' is the
Anthracite times been futile, and several such combustion areas exist today. The existence of an underground combustion site can sometimes be identified in the winter where fallen snow is seen to be melted by the warmth conducted from below. Proposals for harnessing this heat as geothermal energy have not been successful. A vein of anthracite that caught fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania in 1962 has been burning ever since, turning the once-thriving borough into a ghost town. Among current producers, Russia, China and Ukraine have the largest estimated recoverable reserves of anthracite. Other countries with substantial reserves include Vietnam and North Korea.