Coal is found in Mississippian, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary non-marine sequences which underlie as much as 37,000 km2 of Yukon. Some of the largest deposits with great potential are located within the mid-Cretaceous to Eocene strata of the Bonnet Plume basin (Marathon, Pole, Wernecke, Garlic Ring, Illtyd, Pan Ocean and Deslaurier) of northeastern Yukon. The basin is a pull-apart feature related to strike-slip faults of the Richardson fault array.
Coal deposits are also found within the Jura-Cretaceous sedimentary rocks in the Whitehorse trough (Division Mountain, Tantalus Butte), which developed as a forearc basin on the eastern side of the Stikine arc. These deposits formed in fan deltas which separated the emerging arc terrain from flyschoid environments within the trough.
Some deposits occur in Cretaceous to Eocene pull-apart basins along the Tintina fault. Nadahini coal is also documented in the southeast Yukon’s Rock River basin, a 50 km by 10 km graben or half graben filled with Late Cretaceous to Eocene sediments.
Most Yukon coal occurrences possess historical resource calculations that do not meet National Instrument 43-101 standards. Of all known coal deposits, only Division Mountain has an NI 43-101 resource calculation.
Map of Yukon Mineral Deposits (PDF 3.41MB)
