Abstract
Mine water inrush is one of the main hazards in coal mining industry. The mechanism and the processes are complex. Investigation of the spatiotemporal development of the hydrological process could lead to a better understanding of mine water inrush and effective countermeasures. For this reason, we investigated spatial and temporal characteristics (i.e., the changes of flow rate, groundwater level, and water quality) during a water inrush event in China, which had a flow rate of 730 m3/h at maximum and 300m3/h under a steady condition. The result shows that the water inrush developed in several stages. A mathematical model of the dynamic change between the water table and the inrush flow rate was constructed. Based on this model, we found the relationship of highly conductive flow channels between some observation boreholes and the water inrush point. In addition, the recharge velocity of the highly conductive flow channels and the equivalent mean flow velocity of the whole mine were determined. A comprehensive analysis of geological, hydrodynamic, and crustal stress conditions was conducted to study the development of the water channel near the F13 fault and the nonlinear process from seepage stage to inrush stage. The result reveals the water inrush is likely caused by activation of faults under combined influences of high crustal stress and high hydraulic pressure.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2014QNB51), A Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41572218).The first author is also grateful to the Chinese Scholarship Council for providing scholarship to conduct the research described in this paper as visiting research scholar at the University of Arizona. The fourth author would like to acknowledge the support from the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (Grant No. ER-1365), the Environmental Security and Technology Certification Program (Grant No. ER201212), and the National Science Foundation-Division of Earth Sciences (Grant No. 1014594). In addition, he also acknowledges the Outstanding Oversea Professorship award through Jilin University from Department of Education, China, as well as the Global Expert award through Tianjin Normal University from the Thousand Talents Plan of Tianjin City.
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Qi, Y., Li, M., Li, K. et al. Spatiotemporal development of mine water inrush and its mechanism—a case study in Ganhe coal mine, Shanxi, China. Arab J Geosci 10, 433 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3216-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3216-5