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Chapter E, Copper River–Chugach Fossil Fuel and Geothermal Energy Sources for Local Use in Alaska largest of 15 communities with populations of 100–500 residents. Smaller populations occupy at least nine smaller permanent villages. Geography of the Copper River–Chugach Energy Region is dominated by the Wrangell, Saint Elias, and Chugach mountain ranges in the southern and western portions of the region and the Copper River and northwestern Gulf of Alaska basins in the central and southern portions of the region. The mainland along the northern Gulf of Alaska consists of alluvium- and glacier-covered coastal lowlands 0–25 miles wide, backed by a belt up to 25 miles wide of rugged foothills rising to 6,600 feet (Plafker and others, 1994). These foothills are bordered to the north by the exceedingly rugged Chugach and Saint Elias mountains (Plafker and others, 1994). The geology of the region is dominated by three major crustal blocks commonly referred to by geologists as terranes. A terrane is a fault-bounded crustal block with geologic characteristics that are distinctly different from neighboring terranes. These terranes include the Yakutat, Wrangellia composite, and Southern Margin composite terranes which, through plate tectonic processes since Cretaceous time, were accreted to inboard terranes comprising the interior of Alaska. The Yakutat terrane is a thick sequence of Cenozoic clastic marine and nonmarine sedimentary rocks underlain partly by an offset fragment of the Chugach terrane and partly by Paleogene oceanic crust (Plafker and others, 1994). The Wrangellia composite terrane, composed of several smaller terranes, including the Peninsular, Alexander, and Wrangellia terranes, consists dominantly of Paleozoic- and Mesozoic-age arc-related magmatic and sedimentary rocks (Plafker and others, 1994). The Southern Margin composite terrane is composed of deep-marine rocks south of the Border Ranges fault and consists of the Chugach and Prince William terranes, the Ghost Rocks Formation and late Cenozoic accreted rocks (Plafker and others, 1994). Cenozoic-aged strata, which are most prospective for conventional and unconventional resources in this region, occur primarily in two sedimentary basins in the region (sheet 2). The northern Gulf of Alaska basin is largely offshore, but also includes sedimentary rocks exposed onshore near the coast. This basin includes a Cenozoic-age sedimentary succession between 9,800 and 16,400 feet thick; outcrops are scattered throughout the region, including Prince William Sound, Cordova, and east of the Copper River delta along the northern Pacific coast east of the sound (Kirschner, 1988). This basin developed on older rocks of the Yakutat and Southern Margin composite terranes. The Copper River basin, where there has been recent interest in oil and gas exploration, contains Cenozoic sediments between 0 and 9,800 feet thick (Kirschner, 1988). This basin is underlain by Paleozoic- and Mesozoic-age rocks of the Wrangellia composite terrane. GEOLOGIC ENERGY RESOURCE POTENTIAL IN THE COPPER RIVER– CHUGACH ENERGY REGION Mineable coal resource potential Coal resources in the Copper River–Chugach Energy Region occur mostly in the Bering coal field (fig. E2), where coal has a relatively high rank and bed thicknesses can reach tens of feet. The Bering River coal field is located along the tributaries to the Bering River approximately 12 to 25 miles inland of Controller Bay, and approximately 35 miles to the east of the mouth of the Copper River. The field encompasses about 70–80 square miles with an estimated 160 million short tons of identified resources, and 3.5 billion short tons of hypothetical resources (Merritt, 1988). Coal resources in the Bering River field are concentrated at Carbon Creek, Trout Creek/Clear Creek/Cunningham Ridge, and Carbon Mountain (fig. E2). Coal-bearing strata occur in Middle– Late Eocene- to Early Oligocene-age Kushtaka Formation strata (Martin, 1908; Wolfe, 1977), subsequently mapped as Kulthieth Formation by Winkler and Plafker (1993). Coals in these rocks range in rank from subbituminous in the western part of the field to anthracite in the eastern region, and thus on average have relatively high heating values, averaging around 14,000 Btu, with medium ash and sulfur contents. Coal in the Bering River field may be best represented in the Carbon Creek area, where beds commonly occur in thicknesses of 5 to 10 feet, with some seams 30 to 60 feet thick (Merritt, 1988). Some coal beds are laterally discontinuous and sheared due to local folding and faulting. Although this structural complexity would inhibit successful mining, other areas in the field exhibit continuous coal beds for two or more miles (Martin, 1908). Other known coal deposits in the Copper River–Chugach Energy Region are principally small, scattered occurrences of probable Eocene- to Miocene-age lignite exposed on the flanks of the Nutzotin and Wrangell mountains and southern foothills of the Alaska Range. Lignite exposures of limited aerial extent are reported to occur in tributaries to Beaver and Rocker creeks on the northeast flank of the Nutzotin Mountains, near the international border with Canada (Capps, 1915), an area that is also near the boundary with the Yukon–Koyukuk–Upper Tanana development region. Lignite also occurs on the southern flank of the Wrangell Mountains northeast of McCarthy near the head of the Chitistone River (Moffit and Knopf, 1910), and perhaps the head of Chisana Glacier (Merritt and Hawley, 1986) in the Wrangell–St. Elias Wilderness area, and to the southwest of Kennicott Glacier (Henning and Dobey, 1973; Merritt and Hawley, 1986). Henning and Dobey (1973) considered this entire area to be of low coal potential, although little is known about the coal resources in each of these areas. The potential for mineable coal resources along the southern foothills of the eastern Alaska Range is poorly known. Coals in this area are from the Eocene-age Gakona Copper River–Chugach Page 44PDF Image | FOSSIL FUEL AND GEOTHERMAL ENERGY SOURCES FOR LOCAL USE
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