Coal Fields and Federal Land Preserves in Alaska

This map displays coal fields, National Parks, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Wildlife Refuges, National Wilderness Preservation Areas, National Forests, and National Recreation Areas in Alaska. The boundaries of the United States were taken from U.S. Geological Survey 1:2 million digital line graphs. The data on coal fields were obtained from three sources. An ARC/INFO coverage of coal fields in the United States (Tewalt and Oman, 1993) was the major data source, and was originally digitized from the Coal Fields of the United States maps by Trumbull (1960) and Barnes (1961). The Fedlands ARC/INFO coverage, created by the U.S. Geological Survey Mapping Applications Center, provided the locations of the National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, and National Recreation Areas,. The National Wild and Scenic Rivers System was digitized from a map of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (U.S. Geological Survey, 1993). National Wilderness Preservation Areas were digitized from a map prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey (1987) and a map prepared by the National Geographic Society (1994).

The accompanying table contains acreage and coal-tonnage estimates for coal-bearing areas in Alaska that fall within National Parks, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Wildlife Refuges, and National Wilderness Preservation Areas. There are no known significant occurrences of coal within the National Forests or National Recreation Areas in Alaska. The acreage estimates were obtained from Geographic Information System (GIS) analyses. The tonnage estimates were obtained by applying ratios based upon acreage to borough-level estimates of minable coal as developed in Watson et al. (1991). The four Federal preserve areas (National Parks, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Wildlife Refuges, and National Wilderness Preservation Areas) which have significant coal deposits have a total area (adjusted for overlap) of about 142,000,000 acres. About 1.8% of this acreage contains coal. The Summary Statistics which accompany this map indicate that (1) coal-bearing acreage in Federal land preserves in Alaska is small compared to total acreage in Federal land preserves and (2) the tons of minable coal in Federal land preserves in Alaska is a very small portion of total remaining coal reserves in the U.S. Remaining coal reserves (Demonstrated Reserve Base or DRB) for the U.S. are estimated by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) (1993) to be about 474 billion tons.

References

Barnes, F.F., 1961, Coal fields of the United States: Reston, VA, U.S. Geological Survey, sheet 2, scale 1:5,000,000 (map).

EIA (Energy Information Administration), 1993, Coal production 1992: Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, DOE/EIA-0118(92) October 1993, table A-2, p. 73.

National Geographic Society, 1994, The United States - federal lands and wilderness areas: Washington, D.C., National Geographic Society, scale 1:6,740,000, (map).

Tewalt, S.J. and Oman, C.L., 1993, Coal regions and fields of the United States in digital form: Reston, VA, U. S. Geological Survey, U.S. Geological Survey Open-file Report 93-396.

Trumbull, J., 1960, Coal fields of the United States: Reston, VA, U.S. Geological Survey, sheet 1, scale 1:5,000,000 (map).

U.S. Geological Survey, 1993, National wild and scenic rivers system: Reston, VA, U.S. Geological Survey scale 1:5,000,000 (map).

U.S. Geological Survey, 1987, National wilderness preservation system, January 1987: Reston, VA, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, U.S.Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service, 38077-BK-NA-05M-00, scale 1:5,000,000 (map).

Watson, W.D., Medlin, A.L., Krohn, K.K., Brookshire, D.S., and Bernknopf, R.L., 1991, Economic effects of western federal land-use restrictions on U.S. coal markets: Reston, VA, U.S. Geological Survey, Circular 1042, 197 p.