Mining Contract: Deep Coal Mine Safety Studies to Promote Development of Recommendations for Deep Coal Mine Safety through Monitoring Seismic Events

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Contract #	200-2008-25438
Start Date	6/5/2008
End Date	12/31/2009
Research Concept	This contract investigated and reported on the state-of-the-art in mine seismic monitoring systems and methodologies as applied to deep coal mining. The purpose was to examine the susceptibility of mines to seismic activity and identify means of adapting practical technology to the mining environment to better protect miners working at depths greater than 1,500 feet.
Topic Area	Ground Monitoring

Contract Status & Impact

This contract is complete. To receive a copy of the final report, send a request to mining@cdc.gov.

In October 2008, the University of Utah (UUT) conducted a meeting of international experts in monitoring mine seismicity in Salt Lake City, Utah. The results of that meeting were prepared for presentation to a group of industry, labor, and regulatory agency stakeholders in Price, UT, on April 14th, 2009. Input from these stakeholders was incorporated into a final document assessing mine seismic monitoring technology and conveyed to NIOSH in a June 2009 report.

The UUT seismic observatory entered into an agreement with the National Science Foundation to acquire seismic stations near seismically active mines and has incorporated that data stream into its regional seismic monitoring system. The UUT engaged faculty and post-doctoral researchers to investigate techniques to enhance the location precision of regional seismic monitoring. Technical papers were prepared and submitted to peer reviewed journals and final results summarized in the June 2009 final contract report.

The UUT completed a calibration analysis of the LAModel software using a detailed instrumentation dataset from a longwall coal mine. The product of this effort was reported in a successfully defended doctoral dissertation and final results summarized in the June 2009 final contract report.

Determining the value of underground seismic monitoring points to augment surface regional monitoring was performed using simulated data in analysis software to supplement actual surface sensor data. Peer-reviewed publications were generated, and the results defining requirements for these hybrid systems to provide meaningful results was included in the June 2009 final report.