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and 90 West. The part of the Field west of this line is termed the <br />North Fork/Minnesota Creek Area, and that east of the line, the Coal <br />Creek Area. <br />In the North Fork/Minnesota Creek Area, there are 3, and locally 4, coal <br />seams more than 3 feet thick. The lowest, the A Coal Seam, is <br />immediately above the Rollins Sandstone Member. In some places, the A <br />Coal Seam rests direct]y on the Rollins; at others, there are as much <br />as 15 feet of intervening shale. In outcrops in the North Fork of the <br />Gunnison River Canyon, this coal seam is thin and dirty, and consists in <br />places of 2 bands of dirty coal separated by 5 to 10 feet of <br />carbonaceous shale. The maximum observed thickness of the A Coal Seam <br />is near the Minnesota Creek Reservoir where it is a single bed 3-feet, <br />8-inches thick, but past drilling indicates that from this point south <br />and east it splits into 2 seams ranging in thickness from 1 to 3} feet <br />thick. <br />• The second seam, designated as the B Coal Seam, is mined extensively at <br />Somerset and is one of the most important bed of the area. It is <br />thickest along the walls of the North Fork Canyon where it has a maximum <br />observed thickness of around 26 feet. Southward, in Minnesota Creek, <br />the B Coal Seam ranges in thickness between 5 and 15 feet, and is of <br />commercial grade and thickness at all points observed. <br />The next higher bed, which is called the C Coal Seam, lies above the B <br />Coal Seam, and beneath the large sandstone that caps the Lower Coal <br />Member. It ranges in thickness from 4 to 9 feet over a wide area. <br />In the Coal Creek Area, there are 2 principal coal seams in the Lower <br />Coal Member. The lower, termed the Snowshoe Coal Seam because it <br />attains its maximum thickness under Snowshoe Creek, lies just above the <br />Rollins Sandstone Member in many places, and is separated from it by <br />only a thin carbonaceous sandstone. This seam is 9 to 15 feet thick <br />along Snowshoe and Coal Creeks, but northward and westward it splits and <br />• thins out. Where the seam is split, the lower split conforms to the <br />2.04-14 <br />