Anthracite United States also contains several smaller deposits of anthracite, such as those historically mined in Crested Butte, Colorado. The Groundhog Anthracite Deposit, located in British Columbia, Canada, is the largest previously undeveloped anthracite deposit in the world. It is owned by Australian publicly listed company, Atrum Coal and boasts 1.57 billion tonnes of high grade anthracite. Anthracites of newer Tertiary or Cretaceous age are found in the Crowsnest Pass part of the Rocky Mountains in Canada and at various places in the Andes in Peru. Attribution: Anthracite Anthracite, often referred to as hard coal, is a hard, compact variety of
Anthracite difficulty of igniting it. This was a particular concern in smelting iron using a blast furnace. With the invention of hot blast in 1828, which used waste heat to preheat combustion air, anthracite became a preferred fuel, accounting for 45% of US pig iron production within 15 years. Anthracite for iron smelting was later displaced by coke. From the late 19th century until the 1950s, anthracite was the most popular fuel for heating homes and other buildings in the northern US, until it was supplanted by oil-burning systems and more recently natural gas systems. Many large public buildings, such as