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environment from transitional Lower Delta Plain to Upper Delta Plain (fluvial). <br />• In the vicinity of the Hawk's Nest Mine these coals are, in ascending order: <br />1. D Seam - This attritial coal apparently thickens southward with a <br />range of about six feet to over fourteen feet (excluding splits). <br />This coal directly overlies the Bowie Member and generally has very <br />good floor and roof sandstones. <br />2. Wild Seam (Johnson's E Seam) - This coal is highly erratic with <br />generally discontinuous thin coals above and below a mineable coal, <br />with a characteristic thickness excluding splits from five and one- <br />half to ten feet. The coal invariably exhibits numerous splits and <br />generally has poor roof and floor sediments (usually carbonaceous <br />shales and interbedded siltstones). <br />3. E Seam (Johnson's Hawk's Nest or F Bed) - This is the coal mined at <br />the Hawk's Nest Mine. It is an attritial coal with a range in <br />thickness of four feet seven inches to over twe]ve feet, generally <br />thickening to the southwest where a top rider seam adds approximately <br />two and one-half feet to the total thickness. Occasional coaly <br />shale splits occur to the northwest. floor sediments are generally <br />carbonaceous shale, but roof sediments are variable from carbonaceous <br />shales with interbedded siltstones to a good sandstone roof (generally <br />to the northwest). <br />• 4. F Seam (this coal was unnamed by Johnson) - It is generally erratic, <br />based on a limited number of core holes, ranging from several feet <br />up to about eight feet total coal thickness. It is invariably split <br />by coaly shales and is not presently being mined in the Somerset <br />coal district. <br />Mining operations on the Hawk's Nest Mine Leases has consisted of a <br />continuous mining of the E Seam and the development of rock tunnels to the <br />underlying Wild Seam and D Seam. <br />The clastic sediments associated with the coals of the Paonia Member <br />are more continental in character than those of the underlying Bowie Member, <br />although occasional marine sands apparently represent minor transgressions <br />of the Cretaceous Seas. The top of the Paonia Member was marked by Johnson <br />as a thick continuous sandstone that can be seen outcropping along the <br />drainage of the North Fork Gunnison River in the vicinity of the Hawk's Nest <br />• Mine. <br />26 <br />