The Canonbie Coalfield is a small and largely concealed

coalfield A coalfield is an area of certain uniform characteristics where coal is mined. The criteria for determining the approximate boundary of a coalfield are geographical and cultural, in addition to geological. A coalfield often groups the seams of ...

Canonbie Canonbie () is a small village in Dumfriesshire within the local authority area of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, south of Langholm and north of the Anglo-Scottish border. It is on the A7 road from Carlisle to Edinburgh, and the Riv ...

in the south of

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. A comprehensive survey by

Peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and Agriculture, cultivated in China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and the glossy-skinned, non-fuzzy varieties called necta ...

and Horne was published in 1903. Canonbie colliery was worked until 1920, and another mine at Archerbeck continued until 1942. Recent work has indicated potentially economically workable reserves beneath a cover of

New Red Sandstone The New Red Sandstone, chiefly in United Kingdom, British geology, is composed of beds of red sandstone and associated rocks laid down throughout the Permian (300 million years ago) to the end of the Triassic (about 200 million years a ...

rocks. The following

coal seam Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extrac ...

s occur within the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation in this coalfield: * Knottyholm * Archerbeck * Six Foot * Nine Foot * Five Foot * Eight Foot * Seven Foot Further less important seams lie within the underlying Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation and within the overlying strata of the Pennine Upper Coal Measures Formation and the

Warwickshire Group The Warwickshire Group is a lithostratigraphic unit of rock strata defined within the British Carboniferous system. Within the Pennine Basin it overlies (i.e. postdates) the Coal Measures Group and is deemed to be of late Westphalian and Stepha ...

including the 'High Coal' at the base of the latter.

New Proposal

In 2014, New Age Exploration Limited proposed a new coal mine in the Canonbie area. They estimated that the new mine could operate for 26 years and yield 1.4 million tonnes of coal per annum. The emphasis was upon

Coking Coking is the process of heating coal in the absence of oxygen to a temperature above to drive off the volatile components of the raw coal, leaving behind a hard, strong, porous material with a high carbon content called coke. Coke is predomina ...

coal as opposed to power station coal which would be a prime market in the UK and EU.

References

Coal mining regions in Scotland Geography of Dumfries and Galloway {{UK-mine-stub