Abstract
Nearly half of coal mine disasters in China have been found to occur in clusters or to be accompanied by earthquakes nearby, in which all the disaster types are involved. Stress disturbances seem to exist among mining areas and to be responsible for the observed clustering. The earthquakes accompanied by coal mine disasters may be the vital geophysical evidence for tectonic stress disturbances around mining areas. This paper analyzes all the possible causative factors to demonstrate the authenticity and reliability of the observed phenomena. A quantitative study was performed on the degree of clustering, and space–time distribution curves are obtained. Under the threshold of 100 km, 47% of disasters are involved in cluster series and 372 coal mine disasters accompanied by earthquakes. The majority cluster series lasting for 1–2 days correspond well earthquakes nearby, which are speculated to be related to local stress disturbance. While the minority lasting longer than 4 days correspond well with fatal earthquakes, which are speculated to be related to regional stress disturbance. The cluster series possess multiple properties, such as the area, the distance, the related disasters, etc., and compared with the energy and the magnitude of earthquakes, good correspondences are acquired. It indicates that the cluster series of coal mine disasters and earthquakes are linked with fatal earthquakes and may serve as footprints of regional stress disturbance. Speculations relating to the geological model are made, and five disaster-causing models are examined. To earthquake research and disaster prevention, widely scientific significance is suggested.
Highlights
It is clear that tectonic stress contributes to most fatal coal mine roof disasters (He 2000; Zhang and Song 2006)
(1) Nearly half of coal mine disasters in China have been found to occur in clusters or to be accompanied by earthquakes nearby and all the disaster types are involved in cluster series
(2) Microearthquakes accompanied with coal mine disasters generally occurred 2 days before the disasters which indicates that human mining may be the main causative factor for these microearthquakes
Summary
It is clear that tectonic stress contributes to most fatal coal mine roof disasters (He 2000; Zhang and Song 2006). Fully macroscopic observations of coalmine disasters have not been made, but stress disturbance around mining areas has been widely reported all over the world, and in particular around coalmines in China. As early as 1980s, mine quakes in some coalmines in China were first found to tend to response to fatal earthquakes, which was the earliest, but slender evidence of local stress disturbance interacting with tectonic movement (Zhang and Sun 1985; Xu 1987; Xiao 1999). The cluster feature of coalmine disasters and earthquakes discovered in the paper may be the new evidence that human mining interacts with stress field. In China, nearly half of coal mine disasters are found not to occur randomly, but either not to occur, or to occur successively on adjacent areas, presenting cluster feature. No source or publications have reported the cluster feature of coal mine disasters
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