What type of rock is coal associated with and how is it formed?

Answer 1

Millions of years ago, huge coniferous (not to be confused with carnivorous, they're probably all extinct now) trees and massive ferns died and fell into tropical swamps and got covered by a lot of mud and sand and grit and silt and general dirt. The plants stored energy from the sun which they took in when they were alive (called photosynthesis), and was preserved when it turned into coal. Over more millions of years (phew, what a lot of millions of years!) the silt and stuff turned into rock, and all the plants (you know, trees and ferns we were talking about earlier) became coal.