New progress in high-precision and high-resolution seismic exploration technique in coal industry of China

In the past twenty years, the proportion of coal in primary-energy consumpt ion in China is generally between 71.3% and 76.5%. The output of coal was 1 .374 billion tons in 1996, and 1.21 tons in 1998, which ranked first in the world. Now coal is minced mainly with mechanization in China, which is pla nned to reach 80% in major State-owned coal mines in 2000 according to the planning of the government(li ct al., 1998; Tang Dejin, 1998). Compared with the USA and Australia, China has more complex coal geological structures. Based on high-resolution seismic technique in coal exploration , a new seismic technique with high-precision acid high-resolution (2-D and 3-D) has been developed for the purpose of detecting small geological stru ctures in coal mine construction and production to meet the needs of large- scale popularization of mechanized coal mining in China. The technique is l ow in cost and requires a relatively short period of exploration, with high precision and wide-range applications. In the middle of the 1980s, it bega n to he used in pre-mining coal exploration on a trial basis, acid entered the peak of exploration in the 1990s, which has made significant progress i n providing high-precision geological results for the construction and prod uction of coal industry in China, and is still in the ascendant. This paper discusses some new progress and the exploration capability and a pplication range of the technique.