pg 011: Reconnaissance in the Rio Grande coal fields of Texas Publication 5040853

RECONNAISSANCE IN THE RIO GRANDE COAL FIELDS OF TEXAS.

By THOMAS WAYLAND VAUGHAN.

INTRODUCTION.

One of the most important economic questions with which Texas has to deal is that of coal supply. Although it embraces 250,000 square miles of territory, and is by far the largest State in the Union, in 1897 it stood nineteenth in the scale of coal producers. For manufacturing enterprises and railroads coal is one of the first requisites; therefore in the following paper an attempt has been made to state all that is known of the coal fields of the Rio Grande region. Two reconnaissance trips made jointly with Mr. T. W. Stanton, under instructions received front Mr. R. T. Hill, during the field season of 1895; a reconnaissance made in 1898 in company with Prof. William L. Bray, of the University of Texas, who was studying the flora of western Texas; and a certain portion of the notes accumulated while mapping the geology of the Brackett quadrangle, as assistant to Mr. R. T. Hill, and later while mapping the geology of the Uvalde quadrangle, serve as a basis for this report, but all available information has been utilized. The fact that this report is, as a whole, the result of reconnaissance work and that it is not based upon a detailed study of the coal fields herein treated, should be emphasized.

Mr. Stanton has determined all of the Cretaceous fossils discovered, except a few Foraminifera, and has contributed his conclusions concerning the age of the beds. The Eocene fossils were determined by the writer.

The general plan of the discussion followed is:

(1) The general geology of the coal fields and adjoining areas;
(2) the distribution of the coal and the present condition of mining; and
(3) the physical and chemical characters of the coal.

Several coal-bearing areas have been recognized in the region adjacent to the valley of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and Texas. The "

Coal fields of Colorado, by R. C. Hills: Mineral Resources U. S. 1892, pp. 319 et seq. New Mexico, Its Resources, etc., New Mexico Bureau of Immigration, Santa Fe,1884. The Cerillos coal field, by John J. Stevenson: Trans. New York Acad. Sci., Jan., 1890, pp. 105-122. Mr. T. W. Stanton has made an examination of they White Oaks mine, and informs the writer that the coal there is probably Laramie.