The present study is a compilation of published data on coal facies studies in Canada based on coal petrological and other methods. The geological age of the coals range from the Devonian coal deposits in Arctic Canada to coals of Tertiary age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, intermontane British Columbia and Arctic Canada. In terms of rank, the coal deposits studied range from lignite to low volatile bituminous. Coal petrological methods include maceral and microlithotype analyses, frequently integrated with data from palynological and geochemical analyses. Most recently, a number of studies have applied sequence stratigraphic concepts to the coal-bearing strata including the interpretation of coal petrological data in the context of this concept. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.