The Montane Subregion occurs on lower slopes and valley bottoms, and its upper boundary is the lower limit of the Subalpine Natural Subregion.  The Project is also located in the Rocky Mountain Foreland Thrust and Fold Belt, within a succession of generally west-dipping thrust faults and associated folds with predominantly west-dipping axial surfaces.  The Project lies between two major thrust faults, in an area of somewhat lesser disturbance.   The coal deposits of the Project area are typical of those for Inner Foothills and Rocky Mountain areas which have been subjected to a relatively high tectonic formation.  Fault offsets are common but fault- bounded plates generally retain normal stratigraphic thicknesses. 

Grassy Mountain coal in the Mist Mountain Formation outcrop occurs in a general north-south direction for a strike length of approximately seven (7) km.  The Mist Mountain Formation consists of 66 to 194 vertical metres of strata and is overlain by prominent, weather-resistant Blairmore conglomerate.  The strata have been strongly folded and faulted, resulting in sediments and coal zones repeated in parallel bands.  Coal deposits of this type are characterized by tight folds, some with steeply inclined or overturned limbs.  Fault offsets are common but fault-bounded plates
generally retain normal stratigraphic thicknesses.

The coal in the open pit mine will be extracted using standard surface mining techniques found in other operating mines located in western Canada.  Topsoil and sub-soil materials will be salvaged ahead of drilling and blasting operations using bulldozers to push the topsoil into windrows.  An excavator and truck fleet will then follow behind and pick the topsoil up and haul it to designated stockpile areas until a suitable final reclamation placement area can be developed.  Drilling and blasting activities will then begin to break up the waste rock ahead of excavation by diesel powered mining shovels and then hauled away in large haul trucks.  Initially, the waste rock will be directed to ex-pit disposal areas until locations open up for in-pit backfill.  Once the waste rock has been removed the coal is mined and hauled down to the raw coal stockpile area located near the coal handling process plant (CHPP).  Both coal and waste rock haul roads will be developed to allow access from the mining face to the disposal areas.  Full details on reclamation areas and haul roads are currently under development by the Project’s Engineering Team.

The CHPP will consist of the raw coal, reject coal, and product coal material handling components and two coal processing plant modules.  The ROM raw coal from the open pit mine will be dumped from the mining trucks into the raw coal ROM bin.  The raw coal will then be fed into a feed breaker at the bottom of the ROM bin for initial primary sizing.  From there it is then fed onto a conveyor and into a secondary sizing station to ensure a top-size of 50 mm.  From the secondary sizing station the material is fed to one of two surge bins, each one positioned prior to the respective coal processing plant modules. 

Each coal processing plant module will be contained within a housed area complete with bunded concrete floor.  HVAC systems will be included inside the shed to keep temperatures above freezing point.  Each coal processing plant module will have a 3.5 m wide access way for maintenance vehicles inside.  Maintenance will be assisted by an over-head travelling crane along the majority of the coal processing plant module length as well as monorails, which will also be installed above process equipment that require frequent change-outs. 

The coal processing plants process water will be supplied from a reservoir from the mine infrastructure areas water raw water system.  A pump station will send water from the reservoir and pipe it to the coal processing plant modules for use in the processing as well as other minor maintenance requirements.  The coal processing plant process water system will be designed to fully recycle the process water, to minimize the amount of additional make-up water required from the reservoir.  

Coal quality test work and process simulation modeling has shown the most efficient coal processing plant module design consists of a single stage dense medium cyclone (DMC) for processing coarse material, reflux classifiers for processing fine material, and two-stage flotation in a cleaner-scavenger  cell arrangement for processing  ultrafine material.  Product coal dewatering will be completed via vibrating and scroll centrifuges for coarse and fine material, respectively, and a hyperbaric disc filter for ultrafine material.