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Locating the Scope and Depth of Coal Fires Based on Magnetic and Electrical Data

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Abstract

Coal fires are a global environmental and social catastrophe, which deteriorate air quality, destroy the surface vegetation and soil, and pollute groundwater. The delineation of coal fire scope and the location of the fire source are indispensable for the efficient control of them. In this paper, three different geophysical methods, including magnetic method, self-potential method, and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), are adopted to detect coal fires. Upward continuation is conducted with magnetic data and self-potential data to highlight the net anomaly due to coal fires and to suppress the noise from the background geomagnetic field and geoelectric field. The scope of the fires is delineated by magnetic and self-potential anomalies in 2D and is compared with the borehole temperature data. Furthermore, self-potential data is inverted by an iterative compaction constrained inversion algorithm with the assistance of resistivity data. The inverted fire source location, which is represented by the source current density, is consistent with field survey results. The findings are critical to determine the scope and source of underground coal fires.

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Acknowledgements

The project was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 52274236, 52130411, and 51904292), the Xinjiang Key Research and Development Special Task (Grant no. 2022B03003-2), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant no. 2023M733765), the Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (Grant No. 2020-KF-23-01), the Graduate Innovation Program of China University of Mining and Technology (Grant no. 2022WLJCRCZL194), and the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (Grant no. KYCX22_2673).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Safety Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China

    Zhenlu Shao, Guofu Zhang, Long Chen & Xiaoxing Zhong

  2. Mine Safety Service Assurance Center of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China

    Tao Zhou, Jun Wei, Fei Cao, Yong Zhang, Hongsheng Li, Huahai Sun, Shangkun Qing & Teng Chen

  3. No. 156 Coalfield Geological Exploration Brigade, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Bureau of Coal Geology, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China

    Hongwen Shao & Dezhi Yang

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  1. Zhenlu Shao
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  2. Guofu Zhang
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  3. Tao Zhou
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Contributions

ZS: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing—review & editing. GZ: Writing—original draft, Software. TZ: Project administration, Supervision. JW: Investigation- magnetic data. FC: Investigation- magnetic data. YZ: Investigation- self-potential data. HL: Investigation- self-potential data. HS: Investigation- resistivity data. SQ: Investigation- resistivity data. TC: Validation. LC: Validation. HS: Writing – Draft polishing. DY: Writing – Draft polishing. XZ: Methodology, Resources.

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Correspondence to Zhenlu Shao or Xiaoxing Zhong.

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Shao, Z., Zhang, G., Zhou, T. et al. Locating the Scope and Depth of Coal Fires Based on Magnetic and Electrical Data. Pure Appl. Geophys. 180, 3883–3900 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-023-03350-7

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