Details:  The Ministry of Energy and Mines maintains a library of Coal Assessment Reports submitted by exploration companies and dating from 1900.  Reports off confidential are available for viewing on the Web or for purchase on CD-ROM.  Some exploration data from the reports, such as trench, borehole and bulk sample information, have been summarized into a set to digital tables called COALFILE.  This map features Coal Geology layers, data tables from COALFILE and links to Coal Assessment Reports and Coalfield Maps in PDF format. The Coal Geology layers consist of main Coalfields in BC and details of the Hat Creek coal area.

A Coalfield Table links to coal occurrences and coal assessment report tables.

February 24, 2006: Posted Online COALFILE Search application. Searches include COALFILE Number, Report Year, Coal Field and NTS Map.  Results include links to Coal Assessment Reports, Boreholes, Bulk Samples, Trenches, MINFILE, MapPlace, and Google Earth.

February 9, 2005: Nanaimo Area Coal Mine Underground Workings (Upper, Lower) and Shafts or Spot Depths. Data from Pacific Spatial Systems Ltd. www.pssltd.com. Double-click the area footprint to zoom and turn on the workings layers.

November 2004: Environmental Resource Information Project (ERIP) Database is a searchable web-accessible information resource.

April 22, 2004: Updated COALFILE Table Download, including data on 828 reports, 9898 boreholes, 466 bulk samples, 3341 trenches, 889 maps, and links to MINFILE, is now available.

A Coal Report Availability layer displays reports Available, Not Available and Confidential.  Select individual or groups of reports and use the report button to link to the scanned report.

Coal Assessment Reports: Of the 828 Coal Assessment Reports, over 600 are scanned into PDF format.  Partial versions of the scanned reports can be viewed or downloaded from this Coal Map.  Full versions of the reports on CD-ROM are available for the Peace River area NE BC (199 reports on 23 CDs or 2 DVDs for $3980), Crowsnest area (85 reports on 10 CDs or 2 DVDs for $1700.00), Hat Creek area (includes 196 BC Hydro reports), Sage Creek & Cabin Creek area (18 reports 11 CDs for $360.00), and Telkwa area. Other areas are available on request. 

Coalfield maps in PDF format are linked to the Coal PDF Maps layer. To view the maps, turn on the Coal PDF Maps layer in the File Download Layers group and double click each area.  This creates a report including a summary of the Coalfield, links to coal deposit descriptions in MINFILE, links to Coal Assessment Reports, and the Coalfield maps in PDF format.

COALFILE database layers on the Coal Map in MapPlace include an index of the Coal Assessment Reports, Bulk samples, Trench data and Borehole data.  All the COALFILE layers have links to reports and table downloads. PDF versions of the Coal Assessment Reports are available through a linked report.  To access the tables and reports turn on the appropriate layer, use the select tool to select the objects on the map and the view report tool to create a report or dowload.

Contacts & Additional Information:

USGS National Coal Resources Data System - Coal Quality Database
http://energy.er.usgs.gov/products/databases/CoalQual/intro.htm
The National Coal Resources Data System is an online database of analytical data, sample locations, descriptive information, analytical methods, sampling techniques, and bibliographic references for selected US coal samples provided by the USGS. Users are guided through several steps that include choosing the type of report to be generated, specifying sample search criteria, and whether to display or download the report. This can be one or a combination of items such as location, collector, rank, formation, bed, oxide ratio, and others. Once generated, each report contains all available data on the specific samples, which basically includes all information that can be included in searches. Even though similar report generating systems are often not user friendly, this site seems to be fairly straightforward and glitch-free.

View Coal Map
click map heading to view larger version of sample map
click map to go to Coal Map

Links to Coalfields & Tables