A step‑by‑step algorithm is presented for assessing coal's potential to host critical metals (gold,rare earth elements, lithium, zirconium) together with its genetic type. The method is based ongeochemical genotype diagnostics and uses open international databases (WoCQI, COALQUAL); allcalculations can be performed in standard spreadsheets without specialized software. The algorithm consists of 11 stages: determination of basin type (14 classes), identification ofspecial cases, selection of a normalizing element, calculation of the diagnostic index D, genotypediagnosis using thresholds 0.68/0.84, assessment of gold potential from As‑Hg‑Sb anomalies, REEpotential from the multiplicative indicator Y×La×Zr, lithium potential from Li‑B‑Sr anomalies,recognition of complex objects, quality control, and final report generation. Application of the algorithm to five samples from Tanzania with known petrography is presented.
Olga Shagarova (2026) studied this question.