Maps showing coal resources of the Honaker Quadrangle, Russell, Tazewell, and Buchanan counties, Virginia

The Honaker quadrangle lies in two physiographic provinces.  The northern half of the quadrangle is part of the Appalachian Plateaus province, where the coal-bearing formations of Pennsylvanian age are nearly flat lying or very gently dipping.  Diagonally extending east-northeastward across the middle of the quadrangle are several belts of faulted, overturned, and steeply dipping rocks of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian age which are in the fault system that separates the Appalachian Plateaus from the Valley and Ridge provinces.  Several belts of Pennsylvanian rocks in this area contain coal beds that are exposed at the surface.  South of the faulted and overturned belts of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian rocks is an area of older faulted and folded noncoal-bearing rock formations, which are also part of the Appalachian Valley and Ridge province and which form much of the southern half of the Honaker quadrangle.