2010-02-18_PERMIT FILE - C1980007

• Permit No: C1980007
• IBM Index Class Name: Permit File
• Doc Date: 2/18/2010
• Doc Name: Federal Coal Exploration Plan Dry Fork Area
• Section_Exhibit Name: Exhibit 80 Drilling Activities - MR361
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

• 2009 DRY FORK AREA EXPLORATION PLAN
3482.1(A)(3)(iii) Narrative Description of Proposed Exploration Area
The proposed exploration area is located approximately 10 miles east of Paonia, Colorado and 6
miles southeast of the town of Somerset, Colorado. The area lies within a portion of T.14S.
R.90W. 6th Prime Meridian, Gunnison County, Colorado. The proposed exploration area is
located south and east of the existing West Elk Mine. Locations of the 19 sites are shown in
Table 1. The area for fourteen holes is within existing coal leases held by Mountain Coal
Company (C -1362) and Ark Land Company (COC- 67232) as shown on Figure 1B. Thirteen of
the 14 drill sites on USFS lands have been previously analyzed and approved as part of MCC's E
Seam Methane Drainage Well Project and are proposed to be converted to MDW's upon
completion of exploration activities. The USFS Record of Decision for the E Seam MDW
Project, dated 11 -18 -2007, is included as Attachment 2. The 14th site has been previously used
as an exploration drill site for hole SOM -66 drilled in August 1974. The site is to be re- drilled
due to suspect thickness and quality data.
Surface Topography
The elevation of the proposed exploration area ranges from 7400 ft. in the drainage of Dry Fork
of Minnesota Creek and increases southeastward to 8400 ft. on Lions Mesa. The terrain is
comprised of moderate slopes and benches within the Wasatch and Mesa Verde Formations and
the alluvial slopes derived from the Dry Fork drainages. Dry Fork of Minnesota Creek drains
• west and south into Minnesota Creek. Minnesota Creek in turn joins the North Fork of the
Gunnison River at the town of Paonia.
Primary access to the sites will be via USFS Road 711, historically known as Hammond Trail.
Road 711 follows the course of the Dry Fork before crossing Deep Creek and ascending the east
flank of Coal Creek Mesa. Road 711 -2C will be upgraded to access three of the four sites, 2009 -
A, 2009 -B, and 2009 -D. The fourth site, 2009 -C, is adjacent to Road 711 slightly east of the
other three holes.
MCC's existing Special Use Road Permit is included as 'Attachment 3.
Geology
The proposed Dry Fork exploration application area lies along the southeastern edge of the
Piceance Basin within the Somerset Coal Field, occurring on the Minnesota Pass U.S.G.S. 7 1/2
minute quadrangle map. Refer to Figure 1 B.
Initial geological work in this area was done by W. T. Lee (1912) who reported his findings in
"Coal Fields of Grand Mesa and the West Elk Mountains, Colorado" (USGS Bulletin 510). Later
in 1948, Vard H. Johnson published a USGS map of the Paonia Coal Field incorporating drill
hole data generated through a USGS and U.S. Bureau of Mines drilling program. The following
year Johnson further described the geology of the Minnesota Creek area in USBM Technical
Paper 721. More recently, in 1989, C.R. Dunrud compiled a coal resources map of the region
• (USGS Map C -115). In progress from the Colorado Geological Survey is report on the coal
resources of the Somerset Quadrangle (CGS OFR 98 -6).
(Amended 02/04/10)
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