There are several types of problems in coal mining. These include safety, faults, the water table, washout, thin seams, and split seams. Significant

mining engineering Mining engineering is the extraction of minerals from the ground. It is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, metallurgy, geotechnical engineering and surveying. A mining engineer m ...

and other

industrial engineering Industrial engineering (IE) is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical, an ...

goes into helping

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

operations to deal with these challenges.

Mine safety

Gases underground present hazards of asphyxiation and ignition, depending on which gases are present in each part of the mine. Mine ventilation is one of the many capital costs of extending the mine. Mines without good safety culture were often lethal to the workers in centuries past, and although the per capita rates of injuries and deaths are lower in modern mining, they are still nonzero. Cave-ins are another significant risk. Even workers who survive the risks from gases and cave-ins face a risk of

coal workers' pneumoconiosis Black lung disease (BLD), also known as coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or simply black lung, is an occupational type of pneumoconiosis caused by long-term inhalation and deposition of coal dust in the lungs and the consequent lung tissue's react ...

Personal protective equipment Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, elect ...

lessens this risk, but maintaining adequate protection is not easy, especially as advancing mining technologies have made mechanized fracturing of the rock and coal more efficient on a per-worker basis, making more dust to control in tighter spaces and time frames.

Mining accident A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground mining (hard rock), underground coal mining, although accidents al ...

s are not only human tragedies but also financially expensive to mining companies, making their prevention a priority.

Faults

If the coal seam reaches a fault, the seam may be significantly displaced, depending on the type of fault and its offset. Machinery trying to mine the coal may not be able to reach the displaced seam, if the displacement is too large. Coal mines use a combination of boreholes and high-resolution seismic reflection data to identify the larger faults and avoid the most faulted areas at the mine planning stage.

Water table

If the

water table The water table is the upper surface of the phreatic zone or zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with groundwater, which may be fresh, saline, or brackish, depending on the loc ...

is too high, the mine will flood with water. While mining, water needs to be constantly pumped out and this is expensive.

Washout

If a

distributary A distributary, or a distributary channel is a stream channel that branches off and flows a main stream channel. It is the opposite of a ''tributary'', a stream that flows another stream or river. Distributaries are a result of river bifurc ...

or river changes course and cuts into the swamp material that will form coal, the coal seam is not fully formed and there may be a problem with mining it.

Thickness of seams

If the seams are too thin it may be uneconomic to mine the coal. The cost of production could exceed the selling price.

Splitting of seams

If the seam splits, due to a

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

collapsing,

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

and

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

s pile up on top until that area is covered. This may make all or part of the coal seam uneconomic to mine as it is too thin.

References

Coal mining {{mining-stub