Show the book cliffs cli effs coal field utah by ROBURT ROBERT S LUWIS the utah coal field to which the name book cliffs is applied runs in a northeast direction from mt aft dilgarde Hil garde in sevier county along the escarpment of the wasatch plateau to the vicinity of castle gate thence southeast along the book cliffs which lie to the north of and generally within sight of the denver rio grande railroad to the colorado line the book cliffs form the southern escarpment of the west and east Trava puts plateaus and vary in height from 2000 to feet at the base of the wasatch and book cliffs escarpments is a broad plain known as castle valley the coal beds outcropping cropping out in the escarpments along this valley are worked on the largest scale of any in the state and this particular area is known lo 10 book cliffs field the Mesa Alesa verde formation is compose composed d of massive sandstone with sandy and beds of coal and carbonaceous shale the sandstone has greater resistance to erosion and the formation is characterized by escarpment carp ment ledges and cliffs the shale is commonly sandy and is drab in color but where it is associated with the coal it is usually carbonaceous the sandstone is generally buff though occasionally it is white and in places red the bedding ranges from thin to massive in the lower part of the formation the sandstone is red in many places due to the burning of the underlying beds of coal the mancos shale is a fissile black blue gray and drab clay shale which contains local lenses of lime resembling wood ashes british thermal units range from to the th seams worked vary from five to twenty feet in thickness and are remarkably free freel from impurities they dip at an angle of six degrees or less and the mines are usually dry so much so that the companies have found it necessary to install elaborate sprinkling systems to wet the dust which is of a highly inflammable nature all the mines in the district are worked 01 on the room and pillar system entries are driven on the double entry plan mining machines have been in use for only a few years but have come into such favor that they will soon be in universal use throughout the field at nearly all the mines the seams outcrop high up on the steep hillsides hill sides mak A at ug 5 ro panoramic view of tipple power house and townsite standard coal co photo by will C higgins cally as the castle valley coal field geology 1 the book cliffs are capped by the tertiary eocene formation consisting of varicolored buff sandstone conglomerate and subordinate thin beds of limestone different sections show diverse this is mainly the wasatch formation and lies upon the rocks of the upper cretaceous fig 1 is a generalized section of the rocks of the salt lake city read at salt lake meeting of the american institute of mining engineers reprinted from the tuly july bulletin of the institute abstracted from bulletin no TJ S geological survey by G B richardson reconnaissance of the book cliffs coal field between grand river colorado and Sunny sunnyside side I 1 utah stone and at the top thin beds of buff sandstone by which this formation grades into the Mesa verde the shale is much broken by cracks and joints which frequently contain saline films film B it forms the base of the book cliffs and underlies castle valle valley y the coal beds are found in the lower feet of the Mesa verde formation and at the top of the mancos shale the coal is a high grade bituminous coal that can be stored for a long time without deterioration some of the coal which had been exposed to the weather for more than a year appeared to be in excellent condition gloating is often strongly pronounced and is taken advantage of in mining patches of resin occur in the seams being much more plentiful in some mines mine S than tha 1 in I 1 11 others the coal burns freely leaving a moderate quantity of ash of a character closely ing it necessary to use inclines for transporting the coal to the tipples A striking feature of the field is the great extent of the area of burned coal which in some C cases a S e S reaches to a distance of 2000 feet from the outcrop during 1913 utah produced tons of coal imported coal was consumed to the amount of tons most of this coal coming from wyoming the coal exported from the state amounted to tons which was distributed among the C california alif orala oregon states of washington of the most nevada montana and idalio idaho tons of coke made at the sunnyside Sunny side at anaconda plant was shipped to the smelter operators field are all the largest operations in this RIO r those controlled by the denver states stat united grande railroad and the former controls the smelting smelling Sm elting nines mines at sunnyside Sunny side and castle gate as yell well as the utah winter quarters clear creek and schofield mines in the pleasant valley coal field fied the latter controls the mines at mohrland black hawks hawk hiawatha gand and the panther mine near castle gate the mines at storrs standardville Stand ardville and kenilworth belong to other companies all ail of these mines have railroad shipping facilities cili ties the road from price to slack black hawk the southern utah castle valley railroad has a 5 per cent grade in places which is too steep for good railroading and the economic handling of the large tonnage expected from this district for this reason the united states smelting smelling Sm elting co is building a new road the utah railway from black hawk to tap the main line of the D R G R R at a point about a mile south of castle gate this line will be twenty four miles long and will have a per day shaking screens being used the sizes of the various products are as follows dust all coal passing a in screen screened slack from to 1 in nut coal froni from 1 to either eithern 4 or 6 in lump coal all over 4 to 6 in for some years the slack coal that passing a lin l 1 in screen was sold for heating and power purposes until some one suggested taking out the dust and making two products this movement once started had to be followed by all the companies and the result is that the dust has practically no market and is usually sent to the dump As the two mines are on opposite sides of the canyon through which the railroad runs the tipple is provided with two phillips crossover cross over dumps one for each mine ottumwa boxcar box car loaders are employed for loading the nut and lump coal in box cars the open cars are loaded directly from froin chutes 4 75 F F 7 L lower terminal of aerial tramway tipple and power house spring canyon coal co photo by will c higgins maximum grade of 2 per cent construction is well along and the road will probably be in operation some time this fall the accompanying sketch map fig 2 shows the important mines in both the book cliffs and pleasant valley fields castle gate coal co two mines of the utah fuel co are at castle gate the no I 1 mine entrance is about feet southwest from the tipple while we the no 2 or willow creek mine is about a mile to the northeast being reached by a motor haulage road feet long this road has a gauge of 3 ft 4 in and is alaid I 1 aid with 60 pound rails trolley supports t raade of 1 in pipe set in concrete are spaced paced twenty five feet apart the road average grade 2 per cent passes through two wo tunnels anels one of which is 1000 feet long and d the other f feet tipple this Is of steel construction alid was built by the ottumwa box car loader bader goit has a capacity of tons power house dust is used for fuel under the eleven horsepower fire tune tude boilers A drag conveyor brings the h dust from the tipple to a ton steel bin just outside the power house from the bin the coal is conveyed to the bunkers above the b boilers oil which are fed by american automatic stokers smokers sto kers the generators installed furnished direct current at volts these are now being replaced by units consisting of a kw general electric alternating current generator supplying current at 2300 to 4 volts and running at revolutions per minute directly connected to a curtis turbine taking steam at pounds and running condensing one unit is now in operation and the foundation for a second is about completed current will be transmitted to the mines at volts where motor generator sets will transform it into direct current at volts for the cocom locomotives 0 and mining machines the A or lowest seam four to ten feet feel thick was the first one opened and this la Is now worked out save for the stumps of a few pillars the 13 seam seam separated from A by a 30 foot parting is not worked in this mine the seam is too thin three f feet beet and the coal is not very clean most of the present output comes from the 0 seam four to seven feet thick feet above A 4 ton electric locomotive is used in this seam to take the coal to the head of the incline from where it is dropped to the main haulage slope running along the A seam the D seam seven to eleven feet thick and underlain by fifteen to twenty feet of sandstone and shale was discovered only a short time ago and the work done there is in the nature of development work at present this seam is reached by an incline driven up from the C seam this necessitates a rather roundabout method of getting the coal to the tipple so the company is considering the driving of a slope from the D seam to the surface and dropping the coal to the tipple by a new incline the methods of mining diff differ er in minor details in the two mines but the follow following ing description of the working of the C seam of the no 1 mine will give a good idea of the method employed raise entries are run directly up the dip on a grade of 10 per cent the first rooms are run parallel i t to 0 the raise entries leaving a barrier pillar about seventy feet thick between the side entries are turned off at right angles giving a practically pra level grade the rooms are turned off at an average angle of about 55 degrees which gives a grade of about 5 per cent the rooms for hand mining are twenty feet wide while those for machines are driven thirty feet wide the pillars between the rooms are forty feet wide barrier pillars seventy five feet thick are left between the ends of the rooms and the air course of the next entry though all workings are surveyed the miners are often instructed to start the last breakthroughs break between the rooms by driving at right angles to the rooms at a point forty feet back from the end the state law requires connections between the rooms every and feet and every to feet between entries A large part of the mining in this mine is done by hand but recently five sullivan short wall machines have been introduced little or no timber is required in the rooms but the roof must be carefully supported when the pillars are being thorough system of electric shot dr drawn awn A switches swit chess firing has been installed double leakage are used wherever to guard against the firing wires cross the trolley line inspectors examine all places where shots have been fired in order to locate any missed shots mules are used for haulage in n the rooms the no 2 mine has two workable seams the upper one corresponds to the D seam in no 1 mine and is from eighteen to twenty five feet in thickness the other corresponds to the B seam and is from four to seven feet in thickness all mining is done by machines two jeffrey and three sullivan machines of the short wall type being used A general electric locomotive originally twenty tons weight but reduced to fifteen tons takes the trips to the tipple mules are used underground for gathering and haulage in the side entries reached by a branch railroad four and one connecting with the main half miles long line of the rio grande western at a junction point about a mile north of helper to one familiar with the hastily constructed ted buildings found in so many western mining camps the town of storrs is a pleasant surprise laid out along the bottom of the canyon the office hotel and miners cottages are supplied with bath toilet and electric lights and are built of light colored sandstone taken from the nearby quarry of the company the tipple and power house shown in important amp r t nt coal producing acing properties of utah h 1 for year r 1913 name of mine tons men em county post office aloyed pl ayed winter quarters utah fuel co carbon winter quarters clear creek utah fuel co carbon clear creek utah mine utah fuel co carbon utah mine castle gate utah fuel co carbon castle gate Sunny sunnyside Sunn ysido side 2 utah fuel co carbon sunnyside Sunny side kenilworth independent C C co carbon kenilworth aberdeen 2 C A ballinger carbon price carbon panther coal co carbon castle gate storrs spring canyon coal co carbon storrs hiawatha A 1 consolidated fuel co carbon hiawatha black hawk black hawk coal co carbon black hawk ketchum 15 ketchum coal co carbon castle gate standard 56 standard coal co carbon helper i 91 american fuel co grand Mol mohrland irland castle valley coal co emery mohrland johnson 2 A M johnson emery orangeville Orang eville black diamond 2 black diamond coal co emery orangeville Orang eville rock canyon 2 akel anderson emery clawson 2 san rafael fuel co emery castle dale new york 3 utah fuel co san pete fairview larson 1200 4 mt aft pleasant coal co san pete mt pleasant morrison 2100 6 san pete sterling wasatch 35 weber coal co summit Co alville grass creek 80 union fuel co summit grass creek rees 29 rees grass creek C C summit coalville Co alville briquette 2800 7 superior fuel 13 co summit coalville Co alville north star 3 geo gray uintah vernal hatch 1100 4 P E ritch uintah vernal mill 10 pack allen alien uintah vernal kidd 3 A C kidd uintah vernal compiled from the 1913 report of J E pettit state coal mine inspector nearly all of this coal was utilized in making tons of coke the output of no 1 mine is about iun coils per p er day and of no 2 mine from lu iu tons per day wooden cars with end dump are used these have a 28 inch wheel base 18 inch wheels and are made of rough 2 inch plank two sizes are employed one holding 2500 pounds and the other holding pounds the average monthly capacity of all cars is about 2300 pounds the smaller cars are used in the narrow seams where head room is limited the spring canyon coal co the mine office of this company is at storrs stomp carbon county utah which is fig 3 are at the lower end of the town the tipple is of steel construction and is equipped with shaking screens the coal passes from the receiving hopper to the screens over a steel apron picking conveyor five feet wide men on each side of the conveyor pick out the waste or bone as the coal passes by when the mine is working at full capacity there is a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet of coal on the conveyor making it hard to thoroughly clean the coal to overcome the difficulty the management has planned to move the conveyor to the tae lower end of the screens where only the nut and lump coal coa over it the width will be increased increase will dT pass to seven feet and a central longitudinal di vision will be introduced to keep the to t sizes of coal separate although the coal is no dirtier than other coals in this field this company is the first to install a pick ing conveyor the screens are arranged to give the following products slack all the ohp coal passing a linch l 1 inch opening nut coal between 1 and either 4 or 6 inches lump coal all over 4 or 6 inches some gome contracts specify 41 inches as a maximum size for nut coal while others call for coal as large as six inches so two sets of screens are required the slack is elevated to the top of the tipple where it passes through a revolving screen with inch openings the oversize or screened slack is sold but there is so little demand for the undersize or dust that it usually goes to the dump the run of mine mine coal gives about 45 per cent lump 30 per cent nut and 25 per cent slack the |