Geology and coal resources of the Foidel Creek EMRIA site and surrounding area, Routt County, Colorado

Abstract

Terrigenous clastic sediments of the Upper Cretaceous Mesaverde Group (Campanian) in the southeastern part of the Yampa coal field in Routt County, northwestern Colorado, contain many beds of bituminous coal. Lower, middle, and upper coal groups are recognized. The middle coal group, in the lower coal-bearing member of the Williams Fork Formation, contains two thick, persistent coal beds in the Foidel Creek area. The Wadge coal bed, stratigraphically the higher of the two, reaches thicknesses of 3.7 meters, and is strippable beneath large areas on the south slope of Eckman Park. Coal resources of the Wadge bed in the Foidel Creek area--an area of 134 square kilometers, as defined in this study--are estimated to be 317 million metric tons. The Foidel Creek EMRIA reclamation study site--an area of 10.9 square kilometers--contains about 36.1 million metric tons of Wadge coal, as much as 28.1 million metric tons of which occur beneath overburden 61 meters or less in thickness. About 52 meters lower in the section, the Wolf Creek coal bed locally exceeds 6.1 meters in thickness. Coal resources of the Wolf Creek bed in the Foidel Creek area are estimated to be 434 million metric tons. The Foidel Creek EMRIA reclamation study site contains an estimated 49.7 million metric tons of Wolf Creek coal.