U.S. Coal Resources Database
A component of the National Coal Resources
Data System (NCRDS)

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During the energy crisis of the mid-1970s the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with State Geological Surveys, initiated an ambitious project to build a comprehensive national coal information database. This database, known as the National Coal Resources Data System (NCRDS), was to contain information on the quantity and quality of our domestic coal resources. A major objective was to locate, measure, and characterize all of the Nation's coal resources, without regard to bed thickness, depth, location, or quality. An initial goal of the project was to obtain and characterize at least one sample per coal bed from every geographic quadrangle (approximately 50 sq. miles) underlain by coal. NCRDS consists of two primary components: 1) the U. S. Coal Resources Database (USCOAL) described below, and 2) the U. S. Coal Quality Database (COALQUAL), which contains coal quality data.

USCOAL is a subset of NCRDS. It contains published coal-resource estimates for coal-bearing states listed by state, county, coal field, geologic age, formation, rank, coal thickness, and overburden thickness. Data sources and reliability are included. Resource estimates have been entered into USCOAL as they are presented in the source document. The majority of source documents cited in USCOAL are found in USGS Bulletin 1412 (Averitt, 1975). Exceptions occur where more recent detailed reports have been published or older, but more detailed reports by the same author or agency are available. This coal resource inventory may be updated or modified as new data for geographic areas become available or as previously assessed areas are restudied, reevaluated, and reestimated.

• USCOAL is available at "http://energy.er.usgs.gov/products/databases/USCoal/index.htm"
• For information, please contact Marc Levine, Chief, NCRDS (mlevine@usgs.gov)
• The citation for the USGS Bulletin is: Averitt, P., 1975, Remaining Coal Resources of the United States as of January 1, 1974: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1412, 131 p.

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