Faulting and slope failures in surface coal mining—some examples from North East England

Abstract

The shallow terrestrial Coal Measures strata of North East England have been faulted and tectonised by geological events (orogenies), and are divided by faulting and the River Tyne valley into the Northumberl and and Durham coalfields. The type of faulting is almost exclusively normal faulting, with close spacings and complex geometries being prevalent. These coalfields are generally overlain by glacial deposits. Surface coal mining, as a mechanised operation, has been carried out in this region for about the last 60 years. The earliest workings were on a relatively small scale, and faulting and geologically complex ground was avoided as far as possible; but with time, the introduction of progressively larger excavation plant has led to ever larger and deeper surface mines, and working in faulted ground has become commonplace. Detailed ground investigations by drilling and geophysical logging are carried out to prove the geological structure. The gradient of bedding dips usually determines whether the coal should be mined by opencast dip or strike cuts, or by open-pit working, but the choice of excavation face alignments with respect to faulting can be critical. Faces aligned near parallel with faults tend to suffer failures, whereas faces aligned near perpendicular to faults tend to be stable. The types of slope instabilities which are associated with normal faulting comprise planar failures (including bi-planar and multi-planar), toppling failures, tetrahedral wedge failures and complex endwall failures. Endwalls formed against faults are especially likely to become unstable, and can become very problematic if located close to mining area boundaries where important natural or infrastructure features may exist. Several case studies are included to illustrate these points.