Prediction of coal mine water hazards: a case study from the Huainan Coalfield

In the Huainan Coalfield of China, the hazards posed by mine water are becoming more serious with increasing mining depth. Groundwater is mainly transported through tectonic fractures in coal measure strata. Therefore, the identification of fractures in coal measure strata aids in determining whether or not a target coal seam will suffer water hazards. Here, we introduce a prediction method of mine water hazards based on the comprehensive analysis of seismic and logging data using the Permian coal strata of the Huainan Coalfield in China. We used seismic data to locate tectonic fractures, and then selected an appropriate place to drill an exploration well, where dipole acoustic logging data were utilized to finely predict the strata with relatively well-developed fractures. Finally, according to the prior knowledge of the hydrogeology and water inrush of the upper mined coal seams, we concluded that the target strata were likely to contain groundwater and would aggravate the hazard posed by water inrush when the under-group coal seams were mined.