The Clover Bar Coal Zone, Edmonton-Morinville District, Alberta

As part of a Research Council of Alberta program directed towards estimating provincial reserves of coal amenable to strip-mining, near-surface coal deposits in the Edmonton-Morinville district have been examined. In view of the continually increasing power requirements of the City of Edmonton, information about these deposits was held to be of considerable industrial importance.

The district under consideration in this report (Fig. 1) lies beyond the north limits of the City of Edmonton and the Town of Jasper Place, and beyond the north and east limits of the Town of Beverly, in Tps. 53 - 57, Rs. 22 - 26, W. 4th Mer. It is crossed by Highways Nos. 2 and 28 which run north from Edmonton, and by Highway No. 15 which runs northeast from Edmonton. Many of the sectional roads are in good condition and provide ready access to much of the district. Branches of the Canadian National, Canadian Pacific and Northern Alberta Railways radiate out from Edmonton.

The generally low relief of the district is only broken by the deeply incised valleys of the North Saskatchewan and Sturgeon Rivers. Elevations range between just over 2,000 feet at river level downstream from Clover Bar to 2,330 in the northwest near Manawan (Egg) Lake. The district lies in the North Saskatchewan drainage system and is drained largely by the Sturgeon River and its tributary creeks. The Sturgeon River flows into the North Saskatchewan River at Fort Saskatchewan, a few miles east of the map district. The Sturgeon River occupies a 100 foot deep valley with quite steeply sloping sides and a broad, flat, bottom. The North Saskatchewan River Valley has steeply sloping sides, in places almost vertical, about 125 feet in height.

Selwyn (1874) and Tyrrell (1887) were the first to report on the geology of the region, each travelling the North Saskatchewan River during the course of exploratory geological surveys for the Federal Government. Dowling (1910) examined the Edmonton coal field and suggested possible correlation of the Clover Bar seam between Clover Bar and Morinville. A study of the various coal seams underlying the City of Edmonton was mode by Beach (1934) who named ten seams and correlated them through outcrops, mine workings and bore holes.