The Torrens River coal occurrence is located just north of Torrens River, approximately 2 kilometres west of the British Columbia–Alberta border and 117 kilometres south-southeast of Tumbler Ridge.

The region is underlain by an assemblage of sedimentary rocks consisting mainly of continental margin and shelf facies rocks. This assemblage was deposited on and to the west of the Ancestral North American craton. These sedimentary rocks, for the most part typical continental margin slope and basin facies, range in age from Hadrynian to Upper Cretaceous. Structurally these rocks are part of the Foreland thrust and fold belt of the North American Cordillera.

The coal measures of the region occur mainly in Cretaceous sediments deposited unconformably on older slope and basin strata. These sediments were subjected to fold and thrust tectonics which also affected the older rocks.

The Lower Cretaceous Gates Formation (Fort St. John Group) is the main coal-bearing unit on the property. It contains five main seams, numbered #1 to #5.

Seam #1 is 3.6 to 9.1 metres thick with an average thickness of 6.1 metres. It rests immediately above a sandstone unit (Torrens River member), outcrops four times by folded repetition in Wolverine Creek and can be seen in Black Creek (Coal Assessment Report 679).

Seam #2 is 3.6 to 4.6 metres thick and lies from 4.5 to 15 metres above coal seam #1. Coal seams #1 and #2 outcrop in the nose of a syncline on Wolverine Creek, where only 4.5 metres of sandstone separates them.

Seam #3 is 0.6 to 1.5 metres thick and lies approximately 27 metres above coal seam #2.

Seam #4 is the thickest coal seam in the area. It can be traced continuously from the Kakwa area in Alberta to Wolverine Creek in British Columbia. At this locality, the seam is approximately 10.6 metres thick with a 0.3-metre shale parting near the top. The coal seam lies approximately 21 metres above seam #3.

Seam #5 is 0.9 to 3.0 metres thick and can also be traced from the Kakwa area in Alberta to Wolverine Creek in British Columbia. It lies approximately 12 metres above seam #4 on Horn Ridge.

The Lower Cretaceous Gething Formation (Bullhead Group) contains a coal seam, the Gething coal seam (2.4 to 5.8 metres thick) at the top of the formation.

These six seams occur interbedded with sandstone, siltstone, claystone and carbonaceous mudstone. Analyses of coal samples from all the main seams show variations in content (on a dry basis) as follows: 3.18 to 10.86 per cent ash, 19.36 to 27.51 per cent volatile matter, 66.48 to 73.59 per cent fixed carbon and 0.22 to 0.70 per cent sulphur (Coal Assessment Reports 678, 679).

At least three thin coal seams, 0.3 to 0.9 metre thick, are present near the top of the Gates Formation, but drag-folded bedding with an intricately crenulated appearance makes it impossible to fix their stratigraphic position accurately. The bottom of a persistent, grey-weathering pebble conglomerate marks the top of the Gates Formation. These coal seams outcrop on the ridge west of Wolverine Creek and may also be seen along the ridge northwest of Black Creek (Preliminary Geological Map (Map 3), Coal Assessment Report 678).

The structure consists of a series of northwest-trending folds that make up the Torrens Ridge anticlinorium in the southwest and a synclinorium in the northeast. The property is cut in the northeast by a north-northwest– to south-southeast–trending thrust fault. Associated with this is a northwest-trending normal fault that separates the anticlinorium and synclinorium.

The Gething coal seam and seams #1, #2, #4 and #5 appear to be mineable. An oxide zone of 3 to 9 metres should be expected at the outcrop face (Coal Assessment Report 679).

Work History

In 1978 and 1979, two preliminary geological reports were made on the Torrens River coal licences held by W. Filipek.

In 1979, a conservative estimate on the combined tonnage from coal licences 3886 and 3893 was 66 to 71 million tonnes of raw coal. As much as 12.2 to 15.2 million tonnes of raw coal was thought to be suitable for openpit strip mining on the dip slope and two synclines of Wolverine Creek (Coal Assessment Report 679).