The Canyon Creek Coal Lease Sale area is located in the Susitna Valley of Alaska, along the southeastern flank of the Alaska Range, on the lower east flank of Dickason Mountain. The sale area includes both the Canyon and Contact Creeks and their tributaries. The nearest community is Skwentna, nearly 18 miles to the northeast. There is no road access to the lease area.

The Canyon Creek Lease Sale Area lies within an region referred to as the “Cook Inlet Coal Province”, (Merritt and Hawley, 1986) that is a large coal-bearing region with four major Tertiary age coal deposits - the Broad Pass, Susitna-Beluga, Matanuska, and Kenai coal fields (named by Barnes (1967). The Canyon Creek coal lease area is situated adjacent to the Susitna-Beluga coal field. The Southern Alaska – Cook Inlet coal province is situated on a deep (up to 25,000 ft deep), actively subsiding Cenozoic fore-arc basin that formed between the Aleutian volcanic arc and the Aleutian Trench.

The coal occurrences of the Cook Inlet region formed during Tertiary time as part of a large river system that emptied into the Pacific Ocean through the Cook Inlet (Wahrhaftig and others, 1994). There were two major forks of this river system, the alluvial valley of which is now occupied by Cook Inlet, extended northward through the area now occupied by the Susitna Lowland and Broad Pass coal fields and a second branch extended eastward through the valley that contains the Matanuska coal field.

In general, the coals range in BTU content from 5,400 to 9,450 BTU/lb and have Ash contents of from 6 to 40%. They are generally very low in sulfur (0.1 – 0.2%) with moisture contents consistent with subbituminous rank coal (2-30%). Based on the coal drilling and outcrop examinations, where present within the Canyon Creek coal lease area, the coal is at relatively shallow and surface minable depths. Barnes (1966) indicates that there is evidence for slumping and therefore thickening of some coal seams, likely related to faulting in the area.

Previous exploration projects have occurred in the area, most notably by Mobil Oil Corporation in the 1970’s. The Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Sciences (DGGS) used available drill logs from eight coal exploration drill holes drilled by Mobil Oil Corporation (Blumer, 1980; Mobil Oil Corp., 1977), thirteen outcrop localities from F.F. Barnes U.S. Geological Survey coal evaluation of the Beluga-Yentna region (Barnes, 1966), and three coal outcrop evaluations by R.D. Merritt (Merritt, 1990) (see Table 3.1). Based on the available data from drill holes and outcrop localities, DGGS estimates there are approximately 257.9 million short tons of Measured, Indicated and Inferred coal resources within the Canyon Creek coal lease area.

Documentation Available:
Doc-1-canyon-creek-notice-of-sale
Doc-2-Canyon-Creek-coal-Sale-Instructions-Bidders
Doc-3-bidform
Doc-4-coal-qualification-statement-and-instructions
Doc-5-coallse97-canyon-creek-adl