I used to make the coal beds six to eight inches deep.

我过去常常把层到 6 到 8 英寸深。

It is found in beds, or layers, or seams, deep down in the earth.

是从深深的地下的“矿床”或者叫“层”中找到的。

Some people believe that if this continues, oilfields and coal mines will become empty in the future.

一些人相信如果这种续下去，油和层在将来将会枯竭。

Cheap fossil energy, concentrated by geologic time and pressure in seams of coal or pools of oil, changed all that.

经过地质时间和压力的凝缩，富集于层和油中的廉价化石能源改变了这一切。

From the bottom of the shaft the miners cut low passages through the seams, and dig out the coal.

矿工们从矿井底部, 在层里开凿巷道，把来。

The coal sits in big fat seams close to the surface.

炭位于靠近地表的大肥层中。

In the coal itself it is very hard to tell one plant from another, for they have all been crushed together.

可是，在层里面，就很难把一棵棵植物分开，因为植物全都压碎了，混在一起了。

In some coal mines seams of coal are worked which are three thousand feet below the surface of the ground.

在一些矿里，矿工开采的层，足有地表之下3000英尺深。

Coal mining, which liberates the stuff from coal seams, is the second-biggest source of Chinese methane after agriculture.

炭开采从层中释放物质，是中国仅次于农业的第二大甲烷来源。

Then, to reach the buried coal seams, explosives are used to remove up to 800 feet of mountain elevation.

然后， 为了到达埋藏的层，使用炸药移除高达 800 英尺的山体高度。

When I removed my hand it was black. I looked nearer, and found we were in a coal formation.

当我把手拿开时，它是黑色的。我凑近一看，发现我们身处层之中。

The seams of coal are often from three to eight feet thick, and there are layers of sandstone or of clay between them.

层的厚度一般是3英尺到8英尺，层之间是砂岩或者粘土。

To get coal, men called miners, or colliers, dig deep holes straight down into the earth, until they reach the seams of coal.

有一些叫做“矿工”的人，在地上深洞，深洞笔直地向下延伸，一直到层。

The beds of coal were separated by strata of sandstone or compact clays, and appeared crushed under the weight of overlying strata.

层被砂岩或致密粘土地层隔开，并在上覆地层的重量作用下被压碎。

A good example of this phenomenon is recorded in the coal-bearing layers of the 48-million-year old fossil site in Germany known as Geiseltal .

这种现象的一个很好的例子是在德国 4800 万年前的化石遗址 Geiseltal 的含层中记录的。

You will then walk along the low passages cut in the coal seam, and you will see men with pick-axes breaking down and cutting out great blocks of the coal.

然后你就可以沿着层中开凿的巷道走一走，会看见人们拿着镐头，把大块的砍下来，来。