GEOLOGICAL, ARCHAEOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL OCCURRENCES OF COAL, EAST-CENTRAL ELLESMERE ISLAND, ARCTIC CANADA

Coal, once widely distributed over most of east-central Ellesmere Isla nd, is only present in restricted outcrops of Eureka Sound Group sedim ents that survive in the Bache Peninsula Graben (BPG) on eastern Bache Peninsula. The discovery of coals similar to those of Bache Peninsula in modern moraine sediments at the Jewell, Leffert, and Alfred Newton glaciers on Johan Peninsula to the south, provide evidence that(I) th e Eureka Sound Group was more extensive in the past and is present tod ay beneath modern glaciers and (2) the glaciers are likely filling gra bens similar to the BPG. Twelve samples of coal were recovered from Th ule culture house ruins dating from the 12th to 17th centuries A.D. Fo ur samples have huminite reflectance levers and compositional features of lignites, and most likely originated in nearby seams of the Tertia ry Eureka Sound Group. The remaining eight pieces were either boghead coal, cannel shale, or jet materials that are as yet unknown in the Eu reka Sound Group coal-bearing strata. There is no evidence that coal w as burned by the early native peoples. At the turn of the century expl oration of the area and the quest for the North Pole saw the importati on of coal into the area from Nova Scotia. Many references to coal can be found in journals and other literature from the period, and its us e was an important element in the exploration period. Caches of coal b rought by the explorers Robert Peary and Robert Stein are found in the Cape Herschel area and at Pim Island. In 1905, Peary also cached a la rge quantity of coal at Bartlett Bay, 5 km to the east of the coal out crops on eastern Bache Peninsula. Peary, who travelled widely in the a rea on hunting expeditions, likely knew of the local coal but did not choose to use it. Samples of coals from the caches proved to be identi cal to Nova Scotia bituminous coals and very different from the Eureka Sound lignites and sub-bituminous coals. The R.C.M.P. manned a post o n Bache Peninsula from 1926 to 1933 and later at Alexandra Fiord (unti l 1962). The coal, used for cooking and heating, was purchased from a company that imported high rank (anthracite) coal from Wales. Samples of coals from the two posts and a way-station at Rice Strait are very different from both the local and the Nova Scotia coals in terms of ra nk.