Chapter 1: Introduction

(pdf format)

• 1.2 Hydrocarbon Significance
• 1.3 Area of Investigation
• 1.4 Previous Investigations
• 1.5 Regional Geology
• 1.6 Methodology

The Cherokee basin of southeast Kansas, part of the western region Interior Coal Province, is a hydrocarbon-bearing foreland province with abundant resources of deep coal (>100 ft; >30 m burial depth), predominately within the Cherokee Group (Desmoinesian Stage, Middle Pennsylvanian Series). Estimates of total deep coal resource within eastern Kansas are on the order of 48 billion metric tons of predominately bituminous coal (Brady, 1990). The major Cherokee Group coal beds make up the largest portion of this resource and include the Riverton, “Aw” (informal subsurface name), Weir-Pittsburg, Mineral, and Bevier coals (Brady, 1997; Figure 1.01). Typical Cherokee Group coals are of high-volatile A and B bituminous rank. Medium-volatile bituminous coal is the ideal rank for coal bed generated methane (Stoeckinger, 1989). Sufficient overburden, and a competent seal provided by thick shale, generated and trapped quantities of methane in the high-volatile A and B bituminous Cherokee Group coals (Stoeckinger, 1989).

This study of major Cherokee Group coals in southeast Kansas addresses the following: