Abstract

The coalfields of the northern Foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains extend some 450 km from Grande Cache, Alberta, through northeastern British Columbia to about the Sikanni Chief River. Coal occurrences were first noted during the 1800′s, but comprehensive exploration did not begin until the 1960′s; more remote areas remain poorly known. At present, the coal resources of immediate interest in the northern Foothills appear to be on the order of 2.8 gigatonnes of metallurgical and thermal coal; total coal resources may be greater than 9 gigatonnes.

The coal-bearing sediments are mainly of Cretaceous age, and represent deltaic, fluvial and coastal plain environments that formed in response to uplift during the Columbian Orogeny. The majority of the mineable reserves lie within the Lower Cretaceous Gething and Gates Formations. Coal occurrences in the Minnes Group and the Boulder Creek and Dunvegan Formations may be locally significant. The strata have been strongly deformed by concentric folding and thrust faulting, and examples of significant tectonic thickening of coal seams are being explored.

Coal mining in the northern Foothills has been limited by inaccessibility, but projected increases in the demand for metallurgical and thermal coal for export markets have led the governments of Alberta and British Columbia to construct new infrastructure. Modern coal production began at Grande Cache, Alberta in 1970 with a capacity of up to 2 megatonnes/year. In British Columbia, construction of infrastrucuture and the Tumbler Ridge townsite is in progress, and two projects began to ship coal in late 1983; total production from that area is planned to reach about 8.7 megatonnes/year by 1985. Several additional projects have completed feasibility studies.