Evaluation of Available Resources of the Middle Kittanning (No. 6) and Lower Kittanning (No. 5) Coal Beds in Ohio

Includes bibliographical references (pages 16-18).An updated evaluation and estimation of the original, remaining, and available (minable) coal resources for the Middle Kittanning (No. 6) and the Lower Kittanning (No. 5) coal beds of Ohio was completed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Geological Survey (Ohio Geological Survey). This is the first published, detailed statewide estimation for the Middle and Lower Kittanning coals for Ohio in more than 60 years. A geographic information system (GIS) was used in the generation of basal structure and thickness isopach maps from existing Ohio Geological Survey data sources. More than 25,000 individual data points were used, with 94 percent being reviewed for both spatial and geological accuracy. Basal structure maps were generated using the Natural Neighbor interpolation technique; a multistep process of kriging and topo-to-raster modeling was used to create thickness isopach maps. Coal tonnages were calculated from the isopach maps and were summarized by county. The original resource tonnage estimates show that there were 19.2 billion short tons of the Middle Kittanning coal and 15.1 billion short tons of the Lower Kittanning coal prior to any mining in Ohio. Approximately 1.8 billion short tons of Middle Kittanning coal and 0.81 billion short tons of Lower Kittanning coal have been mined, leaving 17.4 billion and 14.3 billion short tons of remaining coal resources, respectively. Of the remaining resources, 11.2 billion short tons of deep-minable and 0.7 billion short tons of surface-minable Middle Kittanning coal, and 6.4 billion short tons of deep-minable and 0.6 billion short tons of surface-minable Lower Kittanning coal, are potentially minable. The largest available resources are located in Guernsey and Harrison Counties for the Middle Kittanning coal bed and in Belmont and Noble Counties for the Lower Kittanning coal bed