Coal Databases
NCRDS Partnerships: State Cooperatives Project
The National Coal Resources Data System (NCRDS) State Cooperatives project supports a publicly available database of coal knowledge that encompasses the entire United States. State-level partnering for coal resource assessment and fundamental research of energy-bearing strata improves the ability of Federal, State and local planners to make optimum policy decisions in the areas of energy development, energy utilization, and land use. For example, coal resource estimates were used to define challenges in mine construction related to right-of-ways next to the Burlington Northern/Union Pacific Joint Mainline Railroad in the Powder River Basin (USGS Open-File Report OF06-1206).
The USGS maintains cooperative agreements with 26 State geological agencies located in the 23 coal producing States indicated on the U.S. map. (Click on map below for each partner’s website.) State agency geologists collect, evaluate, and correlate drill hole, mine, and outcrop data that are stored in the USGS NCRDS stratigraphic database. Cooperators also collect samples for geochemical, petrographic, and other analyses (CoalQual data), including coalbed methane (CBM). The stratigraphic, quality, Geographic Information System and other energy related data submitted by States through the cooperative projects provide support to numerous USGS and State coal research activities. Public requests for drill hole stratigraphic information from the national coal database are also served through this project.
Select any blue-colored state on the above U.S. map to view the corresponding State geological agency website(s).
Top of Page
|
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
