Pearson Coal Petrography is a coal petrographic services company that operates laboratories in Canada, the United States and Australia providing clients with optical microscopic analyses of coking coals and steam coals.

The Victoria laboratory, in British Columbia, opened in 1981 to service coal mining companies in the Rocky Mountains of western Canada. In February 1998, we opened our first US laboratory, now relocated to Gary, in Indiana. This was followed in May 2006, by our Catlettsburg laboratory, in Kentucky. Our newest laboratory which opened January 2008, is located at the port of Mackay, in tropical central Queensland, Australia.

From the two U.S. locations, we provide automated petrographic technology to two of the world’s most advanced non-recovery coke oven batteries - Sun Coke’s Haverhill North Coke Plant, at Franklin Furnace, Ohio, and Indiana Harbor Coke Company, at East Chicago, Indiana.  The Gary laboratory is located within five miles of ArcelorMittal’s Indiana Harbor plant and US Steel’s Gary plant, on the south shore of Lake Michigan. The Catlettsburg laboratory is located at Arch Coal Terminal, on the Big Sandy River, a major tributary of the Ohio River at Ashland, Kentucky. There, a major client is Standard Laboratories. The Mackay laboratory is located close to the world’s largest coking coal terminals - Hay Point and Dalrymple Bay, on the edge of the Bowen Basin, Australia’s principal coking coal resource.

Our laboratories use state-of-the-art sample preparation equipment, including multiple Buehler Simplimet automatic pelletizers with duplex molds, for consistent ISO sample preparation, and automated Buehler Ecomet/Automet polishing equipment for rapid high-quality polished coal surfaces. Our inventory includes nineteen Leitz Orthoplan MPV-2, MPV-Compact or MPV-SP microscope-photometers that are used for manual petrographic analyses - Maceral analysis and Vitrinite Reflectance measurements, to ASTM-, ISO-, or Australian Standards. In addition, each laboratory has Zeiss Universal microscopes with high-resolution CCD image sensors that are used for the daily automated analysis of coking coals and blends, and for Reflectance Profiling - Fingerprinting your coals. All laboratories participate in the US-based CPA quarterly Round-Robin analyses, to assure quality consistency among our operations. Our Petrographers possess ICCP Accreditation.

Computing facilities in the laboratories are linked by High Speed Virtual Private Networks, and provide clients with on-line results, run-charts of sample statistics, and graphical displays of sample qualities.

We employ six permanent, and one part-time, Professional Petrographers, including, Dr. Rachel Walker, Manager of the Gary laboratory, and also the TSOP Editor; Diana Riggs, Manager of the Catlettsburg laboratory; Sandra Dixon, Manager of the Mackay laboratory.

Jen Pearson is Vice President of Finances, and also the Honorary Treasurer of ICCP. Rich Pearson is Vice President of Operations, manages all vital communications servers and all other IT services including software development, as well as Operational Strategies. Dave Pearson is Company President, and is Canada’s representative to the International Standards Organization ISO/TC27 Working Group 19 (Coal Petrography), responsible for the recent revision of ISO7404 “Methods for the petrographic analysis of coals”, and when not dreaming, he crushes coal and makes pellets.

Our clients include:-

Contact information:-