With increasing demands for coal resources, coal has been gradually mined in deep coal seams. Due to high gas content, pressure and in situ stress, deep coal seams show great risks of coal and gas outburst. Protective coal seam mining, as a safe and effective method for gas control, has been widely used in major coal-producing countries in the world. However, at present, the relevant problems, such as gas seepage characteristics and optimization of gas drainage borehole layout in protective coal seam mining have been rarely studied. Firstly, by combining with formulas for measuring and testing permeability of coal and rock mass in different stress regimes and failure modes in the laboratory, this study investigated stress–seepage coupling laws by using built-in language Fish of numerical simulation software FLAC^3D. In addition, this research analyzed distribution characteristics of permeability in a protected coal seam in the process of protective coal seam mining. Secondly, the protected coal seam was divided into a zone with initial permeability, a zone with decreasing permeability, and permeability increasing zones 1 and 2 according to the changes of permeability. In these zones, permeability rises the most in the permeability increasing zone 2. Moreover, by taking Shaqu Coal Mine, Shanxi Province, China as an example, layout of gas drainage boreholes in the protected coal seam was optimized based on the above permeability-based zoning. Finally, numerical simulation and field application showed that gas drainage volume and concentration rise significantly after optimizing borehole layout. Therefore, when gas is drained through boreholes crossing coal seams during the protective coal seam mining in other coal mines, optimization of borehole layout in Shaqu Coal Mine has certain reference values.

With the depletion of mineral resources on land, seafloor massive sulfide deposits have the potential to become as important for exploration, development and mining as those on land. However, it is difficult to investigate the ocean environment where seafloor massive sulfide deposits are located. Thus, improving prospecting efficiency by reducing the exploration search space through mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM) is desirable. MPM has been used in the exploration for seafloor deposits on regional scales, e.g., the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Arctic Ridge. However, studies of MPM on ultraslow-spreading ridges on segment scales to aid exploration for seafloor massive sulfide have not been carried out to date. Here, data of water depth, geology and hydrothermal plume anomalies were analyzed and the weights-of-evidence method was used to study the metallogenic regularity and to predict the potential area for seafloor massive sulfide exploration in 48.7°–50.5° E segments on the ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge. Based on spatial analysis, 11 predictive maps were selected to establish a mineral potential model. Weight values indicate that the location of seafloor massive sulfide deposits is correlated mainly with mode-E faults and oceanic crust thickness in the study area, which correspond with documented ore-controlling factors on other studied ultraslow-spreading ridges. In addition, the detachment fault and ridge axis, which reflect the deep hydrothermal circulation channel and magmatic activities, also play an important role. Based on the posterior probability values, 3 level A, 2 level B and 2 level C areas were identified as targets for further study. The MPM results were helpful for narrowing the search space and have implications for investigating and evaluating seafloor massive sulfide resources in the study area and on other ultraslow-spreading ridges.

Mining-induced tremors are indispensable events that gestate and trigger coal bursts. The radiated energy is usually considered a key index to assess coal burst risk of seismic events. This paper presents a model to assess coal burst risk of seismic events based on multiple seismic source parameters. By considering the distribution and relation laws of the seismic source parameters of coal bursts, the model aims to identify dangerous seismic events that more closely match the characteristics of multiple seismic source parameters of coal bursts. The new coal burst risk index T is proposed. It consists of the similarity index SI (representing the similarity degree of relations between seismic events and coal burst events based on seismic source parameters) and the strength index ST (representing the burst strength of seismic events). We studied 79 coal burst events that occurred during extraction in LW250105 of the Huating coal mine in Gansu Province, China. We obtained the distribution and relation laws of multiple seismic source parameters of coal burst events to establish SI and ST. Two groups of seismic events with different energy distributions were examined to compare the assessment results based on the new model and energy criteria. The results show that 80% and 89% of seismic events with strong coal burst risk in Groups A and B, respectively, were coincident, and the seismic events with medium coal burst risk were slightly less compared to those based on radiated energy. The results indicate that the assessment based on the T value is a modification and optimization of that based on radiated energy. This model is conducive to improving the efficiency of monitoring and early warning of coal burst risk.