DEEP LEVEL COAL SEAM

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 65

DEEP LEVEL COAL SEAM

DISCOVERY IN SOUTHLAND. Mr J. M. Stewart, boring expert, informed a Daily Times reporter last month that a new deep level coal seam had been located on Mr A. W. Rodger’s Birchwood Estate in Southland. An analysis has yet to be made, but, according to Mr Stewart, preliminary tests of an improvised character indicate that the seam has no equal*south of Westland. The seam is 12ft in thickness, commencing at 783 ft below the surface at the bore, but as this has been sunk in a narrow waterworn gully about 200 ft deeper than the tableland the aotual depth below the surrounding surface is approximately 1000 ft. '1 he amount of inflammable gas and. coal oils rising from the new seam is exceptional, and quite a large blazing gas fire results if it is ignited. When this is extinguished innumerabe bubbles show themselves, surrounded by a film of black oily substance, and at other times a miniature gush takes place, a quantity of water being ejected. No water was encountered until the top '■{ the coal measures was touched at 772 ft. Immediately the water and gas were met with the sides of the bore caved in, this necessitating the further lining of the bore-hole. Mr Stewart has always held the opinion that there is a possible oil-field in this district or westward, and the result obtained tends to strengthen that assumption, although it is possible that the favourable indications arise from coal deposits alone. The accepted theory of those most competent to express an opinion—that the coal seams do not live to the dip—has, he states, now received its death blow., and a new era is opened in the possibilities of abandoned coal fields. The site of the new seam is approximately two miles west and to the dip of the measures from the Birchwood Collieries—the nearest operating mine, where the coal was found on the surface. It is intended to continue the bore in search of a second seam which has been proved to exist in the measures to the rise. The possible coal-bearing area is great extent, and the results of the analysis of the samples are being awaited with keen inteies^