Front matter: Preface, acknowledgements, table of contents

This volume is the fifth in a series of reports by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) on the assessment of the quantity
and quality of the nation’s coal deposits that potentially could be mined during the next few decades. For eight
years (1995-2003), geologic, geochemical, and resource information was collected and compiled for the five major
coal-producing regions of the United States: the Appalachian Basin, Illinois Basin, Northern Rocky Mountains and
Great Plains, Colorado Plateau, and the western part of the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain (Gulf Coast) region. The
results of these other USGS coal assessments may be found at: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/coal/coal_assessments/
index.html and a summary of the results from all assessment areas can be found in Ruppert et al. (2002) and Dennen
(2009). This volume contains the assessment results for the Gulf Coast region. The contents of this volume were
compiled mainly during the eight-year period mentioned above. However, every effort has been made to update the
references and text to incorporate new work that has been completed since the original compilation period.