Bankhead Coal Mine, Bankhead, Alberta, Canada

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	51° 13' 50'' North , 115° 31' 32'' West
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	51.23061,-115.52565
Köppen climate type:	ET : Tundra
Other/historical region names associated with this locality:	Upper and Lower Bankhead

A abandoned anthracite coal mine located a few kilometers east of the town of Banff. The mine was located on the edge of Cascade Mountain & its primary purpose was to mine coal for use as locomotive fuel. At its peak of production the mine employed about 300 underground miners. In later years of the mine the coal was mixed with pitch & molded into briquettes for use as home heating fuel. The mine was in production from 1903 to 1922. The mine is located in Banff National Park & no collecting or artifact removal is permitted(although the mine was in production from after Banff National Park was made Canada's first national park in 1885). The site can the visited for historical purposes.

The mine is abandoned & all the structures have been removed. All that is left are building foundations, a compressed air locomotive with cars, & overgrown coal dumps. The park maintains the trail around the site & there are many information plaques at different points around the mine.

The mine town ruins can be seen by a self-guided tour on foot to both the Lower and Upper Bankhead. There is a challenging, yet short hike from the parking lot to some of the fenced-off adits and coal piles with rewarding views of the surrounding Banff area.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded from this region.


No minerals currently recorded for this locality.

Regional Geology

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Early Cretaceous - Jurassic 100.5 - 201.3 Ma ID: 691110

Fernie Formation and Kootenay Group Age: Mesozoic (100.5 - 201.3 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Fernie Formation; Kootenay Group Description: Marine to nonmarine Lithology: Shale, siltstone, sandstone, and limestone Reference: Prior, G.J.; Hathway, B.; Glombick, P.M.; Pana, D.I.; Banks, C.J.; Hay, D.C.; Schneider, C.L.; Grobe, M.; Elgr, R.; Weiss, J.A. Bedrock Geology of Alberta. AER/AGS Open File Report 2013-02. [4]

Mississippian - Devonian 323.2 - 419.2 Ma ID: 3189237

Paleozoic sedimentary rocks Age: Paleozoic (323.2 - 419.2 Ma) Lithology: Sedimentary rocks Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

Localities in this Region

References

External Links