--> Abstract: Availability of Coal in the Hackett 7.5-Minute Quadrangle, Washington County, Pennsylvania, by L. J. Lentz and J. C. Neubaum; #90950 (1996).

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Abstract: Availability of Coal in the Hackett 7.5-Minute Quadrangle, Washington County, Pennsylvania

Leonard J. Lentz, John C. Neubaum

Coal has been extensively mined in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the Appalachian Basin over the last 100 years. In an attempt to better define what coal is left, a new approach to quantifying resources, rooted in modern environmental and technological constraints, was needed.

The Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey, embarked in 1993 upon a series of six quadrangle studies for Pennsylvania to provide information about coal resources still accessible to mining. Using our data residing on the United States Geological Survey's National Coal Resources Data System computer to compute resources for the Hackett 7.5-minute quadrangle, the available coal for the four principally mined seams in the area (the Pittsburgh, Redstone, Waynesburg, and Waynesburg A coals) could be determined by subtracting out mined-out areas from in-place coal to give remaining coal, and then subtracting land-use and technological restrictions to mining, such as wetlands, and subsidence waivers, respectively, from the remaining oal. Results of the study found that the amount of coal available for mining varied from 26 to 70 percent. It is felt by the authors that this quadrangle is typical of the mature nature of this mining region for this part of the geologic section, and that similar results might be expected for the other quadrangles to be studied in southwestern Pennsylvania.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90950©1996 AAPG GCAGS 46th Annual Meeting, San Antonio, Texas