Tectonic displacement of coal seams in China has resulted in faulting parallel to coal bedding. Displacement along these faults caused significant comminution of the coal on the footwall contributing to various mining problems, the worst of which is catastrophic failure, or "outbursting" of the working face during mining. The granular texture and mostly unconsolidated nature of the coal suggests that faulting occurred relatively late in the coalification sequence, at a time of maximum tectonic stress. Coal samples taken on either side of the fault plane (normal and deformed coal layers) were obtained in an effort to establish what influence these tectonic stresses might have had on coal properties as well as what they might reveal about the influence of tectonic pressure on organic maturity. Sample sets were collected within coal beds from undisturbed and adjacent deformed layers, including 21 bituminous samples from the Pingding-shan coal field and nine anthracite samples from the Jiaozuo coal field, the Tieshenggou coal mine of the Yuxi coal field in Henan province, the Beijing Xishan coal field, the Baijiao mine of the Furong coal field in Sichuang province and the Baisha coal field in Hunan province, China. Results from vitrinite reflectance, proximate and ultimate analyses show some differences in reflectance, hydrogen content and nitrogen content of anthracite coal. No significant difference was found between volatile matter yields of normal and deformed coal specimens. GC measurements of the saturated hydrocarbon fraction of chloroform extracts from bituminous coals showed that lower molecular weight carbon fragments were concentrated in the deformed samples. Therefore, although changes in the gross chemical properties of the deformed coal were insignificant, some modification of the chemical structure is seen to have occurred as a result of exposure to tectonic pressure. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.