In the Yukon Territory and District of Mackenzie, coal-bearing strata, ranging in age from Mississippian to Oligocene, have been found in some 27 areas. In the Yukon, such rocks underlie 37,000 km(2), while in the District of Mackenzie, 3000 km(2) are believed to contain coal in the Brackett Basin alone, with additional potential in the Liard River, Godlin Lake and Great Bear Lake areas. The three most important basins are the Whitehorse Trough and Bonnet Plume Basin in the Yukon Territory and the Brackett Basin in the District of Mackenzie. In the Whitehorse Trough, coal exploration has been carried out at Mount Granger near Whitehorse and at Division Mountain, west of Braeburn. Coal mining has been actively carried on at Carmacks and Tantalus Butte. The Whitehorse Trough coals are in the Laberge Group and Tantalus Formation (Jurassic to Cretaceous in age). In the Bonnet Plume Basin, the age of the coal is Cretaceous to Tertiary, and it occurs in the Bonnet Plume Formation. In the Brackett Basin, again the age is Cretaceous to Tertiary, and the main coal-bearing unit is the Summit Creek Formation. At Mount Granger, igneous intrusives have influenced maturation, and ranks range from low volatile bituminous to meta-anthracite. At Division Mountain and Tantalus/Carmacks, the coal is of high volatile bituminous rank. At Bonnet Plume, most of the coals are also high volatile bituminous, whereas in the Brackett Basin, the rank is lignite. Total inferred resources for the three basins mentioned above are about 5000 Mtons, with by far the larger resources occurring in the Bonnet Plume and Brackett Basins. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
