STRIPPABLE COAL RESERVES OF WYOMING. LOCATION, TONNAGE, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF COAL AND OVERBURDEN

Coal resource data from published sources and company files were used by the Bureau of Mines to determine the location and extent of strippable coal reserves in Wyoming. Total strippable reserves of 23 billion tons were estimated in seven major coal areas. Seven large strip mining operations were active in 1969, and their production totaled 4-1/2 million tons of coal. Cutoffs used to define strippable reserves were (1) minimum coalbed thicknesses of 5 feet; (2) overburden-to-coal ratios of less than 10 cubic yards of overburden per ton of coal, and (3) total overburden thicknesses of less than 120 feet, except where reserves occur in multiple beds or a single thick bed. Tertiary rocks along margins of the Powder River basin contain most of the strippable coal reserves in Wyoming. The Wyoming beds ranging in combined thickness from 30 to 130 feet, crop out on the east flank of the basin and contain an estimate 19 billion tons of strippable subbituminous C-rank coals under less than 200 feet of overburden. Partings between these beds total less than 60 feet. The 100- to 200-foot-thick Healy bed on the western flank of the basin and the 35-foot-thick School and 20-foot-thick Badger beds on the south also contain large strippable reserves. Elsewhere in Wyoming, strippable deposits are subbituminous coal of Late Cretaceous and Tertiary ages, mostly in the Hanna and Great Divide basins in the south-central portion of the State and in the Kremmerer-Hamms Fork region in the southwestern corner.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Notification of this Information Circular appeared in the Bureau of Mines--New Publications, October 1972, Monthly List 690.
• Corporate Authors:

  Bureau of Mines

  College Park Research Center
  College Park, MD  United States  20742
• Authors:
  • Smith, J
  • Ayler, M F
  • Knox, C C
  • Pollard, B C
• Publication Date: 1972

Media Info

• Features: Figures;
• Pagination: 51 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Coal; Coal industry; Coal resources; Freight traffic; Freight transportation; Mineral resources; Minerals
• Geographic Terms: Wyoming
• Old TRIS Terms: Mineral traffic
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Geotechnology; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00040971
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Bureau of Mines
• Report/Paper Numbers: IC 3538
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 2 1973 12:00AM