New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

The New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources with participation from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, E. C. Beaumont and Associates, and A. D. Cohen has undertaken a long-term coal-quality program evaluating New Mexico strippable
coals with major funding from the New Mexico Energy Research and Development Institute. Funding also included co-sponsorship from Anaconda Minerals, Consolidation Coal Co., Pittsburg and Midway Coal Co., Santa Fe Mining Inc., Public Service Company of New Mexico, and Sunbelt Mining Co., and others. The purpose of this project is to uniformly sample and run a wide variety of analyses on these coals to obtain a standard set of geological and analytical data to eventually help determine the best end uses for New Mexico coals. In the summer of 1985, the Fruitland Formation and part of the Menefee Formation in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico were drilled and cored on approximately two-mile centers. With data obtained from the first drilling season,some general geologic and quality trends in the coal-bearing sequences are apparent.