Table B. U.S. Coal Resource Databases: USCOAL and NEWCOAL

USCOAL and NEWCOAL Database Elements

Element Number	Name in Database	Type¹	Maximum Field Length	Description
1	State	Text	16	Name of State.
2	County	Text	24	Name of county within State.
3	Principal	Integer	2	Principal Meridian from which a
	Meridian*			township/range survey was begun and is
				given as a numeric code in USCOAL and
				NEWCOAL records. Table 1 lists the
				meridians and baselines of the United
				States rectangular surveys, as provided by
				the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, as
				well as the U.S. Bureau of Mines code
				associated with each name
				(U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1974).
4	Township*	Integer	3	Township number of the township/range
				survey. Three digits are provided for the
				township number, allowing values from
				001 to 999. However, no provision has
				been made for half or other fractions of
				townships.
5	NS*	Text	1	Township direction, north or south.
6	Range*	Integer	3	Range number, and like Township, three
				digits are allowed with no provision for
				half or other fractions of ranges.
7	EW*	Text	1	Range Direction, east or west.
8	Section*	Integer	2	Section number within a township range unit.
9	AAPG	Integer	3	American Association of Petroleum
	Province Code*			Geologists (AAPG) province number
				(Meyer, 1970). The purpose of using this
				number is to provide a link between the
				NCRDS and other national energy data
				systems. The associated geologic
				provinces, districts, basin, and so on, do
				not necessarily correspond from one
				resource to another.
10	Coal Province	Text	16	Coal province name. Figure 1 shows the
				coal provinces of the United States.
11	Coal Region	Text	24	Coal region name, a subset of coal
				provinces. Figure 2 shows the coal regions
				of the United States. The coal regions for
				the conterminous 48 States correspond to
				those given by Trumbull (1960). No
				previous designations have been given to
				the regions of the Alaska province.
				Therefore, the base map from Barnes
				(1961) was used to derive logical regional
				subdivisions for NCRDS use as shown
				in Figure 3.
12	Coal Field	Text	16	Coal field name as given in the source
				document. (Trumbull, 1960, and Barnes,
				1961, show many of the coal field names.)
13	District	Text	24	District is a local area designator applicable
				mainly to the Alaskan areas. These names
				are, in many cases, interchangeable with
				field names, implying no hierarchical
				difference between district and field. This
				field is also used for mining district,
				political divisions (such as townships or
				boroughs), and for miscellaneous data
				items such as geologic "group."
14	Quadrangle	Text	28	Topographic quadrangle or other map
				name. Refers to the quadrangle for which
				the resource tonnage estimate was made.
				Very few resources estimates have been
				reported on a quadrangle basis.
15	System	Text	16	Geological age designation. (See
				MacLachlan and others, 1992.)
16	Series	Text	12	Name given to a subdivided system. (See
				MacLachlan and others, 1992.)
17	Formation	Text	16	Stratigraphic formation name. (See
				MacLachlan and others, 1992.)
18	Bed	Text	20	Stratigraphic coal bed name.
19	Major Rank	Text	20	Name used for the four major categories of
				coal rank: anthracite, bituminous,
				subbituminous, and lignite.
20	Minor Rank*	Text	20	Subdivision of the major rank, where
				reported. (See Table 3.)
21	Data Source	Text	20	Abbreviation of the publications from
				which the data were taken. See the
				reference documentation for an explanation
				of the abbreviations.
22	Year	Integer	4	Year of publication of the source document.
23	Base Year	Integer	4	Base year for which estimates were made
				of the tonnages of coal. As an example,
				"1951" indicates that the estimates are for
				remaining resources as of 1951; "0000"
				indicates that the tonnage estimate is of
				original coal resources prior to
				production.
24	Thickness	Text	20	Range of coal thickness categories. The
				possible values of thickness are shown in
				Table 3.
25	Overburden	Text	20	Range of overburden thickness categories.
				The possible values of overburden are
				shown in Table 3.
26	Reliability	Text	24	Reliability of a tonnage estimate based
				upon its proximity to a data point of coal
				thickness measurement. The possible
				values of reliability are shown in Table 3.
27	Tonnage	Real	8.2	Estimated coal resource in millions of short
				tons to two decimal places. A tonnage
				value exists for every unique combination
				of coal bed thickness, overburden
				thickness, reliability of estimate, location,
				and bed.
1. (Text =character field, Integer = integer numeric field, Real - real number field)
2. Items marked with an asterisk (*) are not available for search/retrieval at this time.