AVAILABILITY OF COAL DATA ON THE WEB AT THE KENTUCKY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

The Kentucky Geological Survey has acquired a plethora of coal data over the years. These data include coal borehole, thickness, quality, and production records. Data were supplied by private coal or land companies, other state and federal agencies, or collected by geologists at the Kentucky Geological Survey.

The Kentucky Geological Survey has recently made all coal data available on the Web, at www.uky.edu/KGS/, free of charge. Coal borehole, thickness, and quality records may be searched online by county, 7.5-minute quadrangle, or by a latitude/longitude radius search. In addition, all search results may be limited by stratigraphic range. Data may be viewed online or downloaded in standard text files. The borehole records provide descriptive information about the locations, downloadable lithology reports, and summaries of correlated seams. Graphic strip logs can also be viewed online. The thickness database contains measurements of coal collected by geologists in the field. Results include coal thickness, parting thickness, and seam evaluation. The coal quality database contains a variety of analyses of Kentucky coals made at University of Kentucky or Federal laboratories. Locations may have proximate, ultimate, physical properties, or trace element analyses. Data may be searched by year or location and can be downloaded as a standard text file. The coal borehole, thickness, and quality data can also be viewed on an ArcIMS map. In addition, the coal site provides coal production summaries (tables and graphs) from data provided by the Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals; summaries of Kentucky coal resource investigations; coal research summaries and links to online publications; well-illustrated explanations of coal origins, components, types, properties, resources, and mining methods; and annotated links to other coal Web sites.