Coal Fields and the National Wilderness Preservation System

This map displays coal fields, coal regions, and units of the National Wilderness Preservation System in the conterminous United States. The boundaries of the United States were taken from U.S. Geological Survey 1:2 million digital line graphs. The data on coal basins were obtained from three sources. An ARC/INFO coverage of coal basins 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 Gulf region of this coverage was modified by Peter Warwick (U.S. Geological Survey, Branch of Coal Geology) to consist of the outcrop of lignite-bearing strata and potential near-surface deposits of Texas (St. Clair, et al., 1976) and the Jackson, Claiborne,, and Wilcox Groups from the King and Beikman geologic map of the Untied States (Schruben, et al., 1993). The Appalachian, Interior, and Western coal-producing regions were defined as in Energy Information Administration (EIA) (1994). The Appalachian region was further subdivided into Northern, Central, and Southern regions as in Office of Surface Mining (1992). 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 National Wilderness Preservation Areas. The acreage estimates were obtained either from Geographic Information System (GIS) analyses or from the managing agencies (MA). The tonnage estimates were obtained by applying ratios based upon acreage to county-level estimates of minable coal as developed in Watson et al. (1991). The total area of the National Wilderness Preservation System in the conterminous United States is about 31,000,000 acres. About 1.8% of this acreage contains coal. It is unlikely that federally-owned, coal-bearing portions in these areas will be leased for coal mining. Thus, the privately-owned, coal-bearing portions are a more reliable estimate of acreage which could potentially be disturbed by future coal mining. The Summary Statistics which accompany this map indicate that (1) private, coal-bearing acreage is small compared to total acreage in the National Wilderness Preservation System and (2) the tons of privately-owned minable coal in National Wilderness Preservation Areas are 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 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, scale 1:5,000,000, sheet 2 (map).

EIA (Energy Information Administration), 1994, Quarterly coal report April-June 1994: Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Coal, Nuclear, Electric, and Alternate Fuels, Energy Information Administration, DOE/EIA-0121 (94/2Q) December 1994. p. 150-151.

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).

Office of Surface Mining, 1992, Final environmental impact statement, proposed revision to the permanent program regulations implementing section 522(e) of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977: Washington, D.C., Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Report OSM-EIS-29. p. III-2.

Schruben, P.G., Arndt, R.E., and Bawiec, W.J., 1993, Geology of the conterminous United States at 1:2,500,000 scale--a digital representation of the 1974 P.B. King and H.M. Beikman map: Reston, VA, U.S. Geological Survey, Digital Data Series DDS-11.

St. Clair, A.E., Evans, T.J., Garner, L.E., Nemeth, K.E., and Bartow, W.P., 1976, Energy resources of Texas: Austin, Texas, The University of Texas at Austin and Bureau of Economic Geology, scale 1:1,000,000 (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, Open-file Report 93-396.

U.S. Geological Survey, 1987, National Wilderness Preservation System January 1987: Reston, VA, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, VSDI Bureau of Land Managment, 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.