The Adams coal occurrence is located 26 kilometres southwest of the community of Hudson’s Hope and 51 kilometres northwest of Chetwynd, in the Liard Mining Division.
The Peace River Coalfield extends nearly 400 kilometres along the Northern Rocky Mountain inner foothills from the Alberta border, 180 kilometres east of Prince George, to 130 kilometres north of Hudson’s Hope at Pink Mountain. Medium to low volatile bituminous coal seams of economic thickness and continuity are hosted by the Lower Cretaceous Gething (up to 1036 metres thick) and Gates (up to 280 metres thick) sedimentary formations of the Bullhead and Fort St. John groups, respectively. The Gething Formation represents the dominant coal-bearing strata north of the Sukunka-Bullmoose area (MINFILE 093P 001, 093P 014 ) west of Tumbler Ridge.
The Lower Cretaceous Gething Formation (Bullhead Group) consists of alternating units of fine to coarse-grained sandstone, carbonaceous shale, mudstone, coal, siltstone and conglomerate. Three to four significant coal seams occur in the upper part of this formation. The upper contact is a thin bed of pebble conglomerate overlain by distinctive glauconitic, marine sandstones that form the base of the overlying Lower Cretaceous Moosebar Formation (Fort St. John Group). Its thickness ranges from 120 to 200 metres.
The coal of interest on the Adams property lies within the Gething Formation. In the Peace River Canyon area, coal beds vary from a few centimetres to 4.5 metres thick. Although a 1979 drill program was concerned with locating any sizable coal seam, it was the Trojan seam that was of primary interest. The drilling intersected a 2- to 2.5-metre-thick seam approximately 70 metres below the top of the Gething Formation that is correlatable in three holes and has been tentatively identified as the Trojan seam. Two drillholes were started below the Trojan horizon and two other seams greater than 2 metres thick were intersected in two separate drillholes.
The structure consists of a northwest-trending and southeast plunging syncline (Adams syncline, in the northwest) and anticline (Gething Creek anticline, in the southeast). The axial regions dip 10 to 20 degrees whereas dips on the flanks are up to 60 degrees. In the northwest of the property, the Carbon Creek fault (northwest-trending, southwest-dipping) thrusts Triassic and Jurassic rocks, from the west, over Cretaceous rocks. Except for this, faulting on the Adams property is minor.
The coal is medium volatile bituminous, with high heat value and low ash content. Analyses (1973) of seams over 0.3 metre showed ash contents varying from 3.17 to 28.10 per cent; volatile matter, from 20.70 to 32.90 per cent; and FSI values, from 1 to 7.
The Adams property was held by Shell Canada Resources Limited and operated by Crows Nest Resources Limited and consisted of 32 coal licences (4153 to 4184) totalling 9288 hectares. These licences were granted on August 17, 1978, and were dropped in December 1982 and October 1984.
In June and July 1979, Crows Nest Resources Limited conducted an exploration program that consisted of geological mapping, photogrammetric and geodetic surveying, and drilling four diamond drill holes and two rotary drill holes (1430.3 metres total). The 1982 program consisted of geological mapping, geophysical surveying and diamond drilling (two NQ diamond drill holes totalling 466 metres).
