Abstract
Coal is reported to be present in almost all the countries that border the Caribbean Sea. All the countries of Central America are known to contain coal except Belize. All the countries of northern South America contain coal except the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. All the countries of the Greater Antilles contain coal, but among the island nations of the Lesser Antilles, only Anguilla has been reported to contain coal or coaly material.
The known coal deposits range in age from late Paleozoic to mid-Tertiary and occur in geologically complex areas. Most of the coals are probably of subbituminous rank and of early Tertiary age. The ash and sulfur contents of the coals have a broad range but most of the coals can probably be utilized in environmentally acceptable manners for a variety of purposes through use of presently available technology.
With presently available information, estimates of total reserves and recoverable quantities of coal in the region are not possible. However, application of geologic inference and speculation indicates that the total quantity of original coal-in-place in the region may be more than 100 billion MT. Considerable exploration and development will be needed to allow detailed evaluation of the coal resources of the region.
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Landis, E.R., Weaver, J.N., Carter, M.D., Wood, G.H. (1995). Coal in the Central American-Caribbean Region. In: Miller, R.L., Escalante, G., Reinemund, J.A., Bergin, M.J. (eds) Energy and Mineral Potential of the Central American-Caribbean Region. Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources Earth Science Series, vol 16. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-79476-6_18
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