The Vermillion Creek basin is an irregularly shaped topographic basin that occupies an area of approximately 500 sq mi (1,300 sq km) east of the common boundary of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Nearly 4,000 ft (1,200 m) of exposed Eocene rocks in the basin compose parts of the intertongued Wasatch and Green River Formations. High-sulfur, radioactive coal beds of freshwater paludal-lacustrine origin have been identified in the upper part of the main body of the Wasatch Formation and in the upper and lower parts of the Niland Tongue of the Wasatch Formation. The Niland Tongue is about 300 ft (90 m) thick. It is composed of interbedded brown and gray shale, carbonaceous shale, sandstone, mudstone, oil shale, and coal. The Vermillion Creek coal bed is well exposed near the top of the Niland Tongue. Analyses of this coal bed indicate that it has unusual composition and an anomalously high bituminous B rank. It locally exceeds 6 ft (2 m) in thickness and is potentially minable.

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