Locating Abandoned Mines Using the Active Mining Operation as the Seismic Energy Source – Demonstration of a New Method
This study demonstrates a new method for detecting the margin of old mine works using the seismic energy generated by active mining in the coal seam. As the first test of this new concept, the method should not be viewed as a proven, off-the-shelf technology, but rather a demonstration of the fundamental concept which has promise for detecting the margins of old mine works. For the primary method a linear spread of vertical 4.5Hz geophones on the earth’s surface was distributed across the margin of old mine works (both flooded and air-filled locations) and to a position over the active mining nearby. The seismic vibrations associated with the underground mining were passively recorded across this spread, with individual records as long as 32 seconds. Through a process of crosscorrelation, using each seismic trace sequentially as the pilot sweep for correlation with each other trace in the recording, two distinct seismic wave arrival patterns emerged from the data. The direct arrival from the mining operation to the surface through the rock overlying the coal seam was distinct and well represented in
A Coal Seam as a Guide for Seismic Energy
A DISPERSIVE train of vibrations resembling an internal Love wave has been observed during seismic experiments in the Mangapehi State Coal Mine, New Zealand. The observation is of interest as suggesting that coal mines may offer peculiarly favourable conditions for the study of this type of wave, and also because guided waves may find useful applications in mining.
The use of drill‐bit energy as a downhole seismic source
A new wellbore seismic technique uses the vibrations produced by a drill bit while drilling as a downhole seismic energy source. The technique is described as 'inverse' VSP because the source and receiver positions of conventional VSP are reversed. No downhole instrumentation is required to obtain the data and the data recording does not interfere with the drilling process. These characteristics offer a method by which borehole seismic data can be acquired, processed, and interpreted while drilling. Interchanging the conventional VSP source and receiver positions improves the efficiency of recording multioffset surveys for imaging a 3-D data volume in the borehole vicinity. The continuous signals generated by the drill bit are recorded by a pilot sensor attached to the top of the drillstring and by receivers located at selected positions around the borehole. The pilot signal is crosscorrelated with the receiver signals to compute traveltimes of the arrivals and to attenuate incoherent noise. Deconvolution and time shifts of the pilot signal compensate for the effects of propagation from the drill bit to the top of the drillstring. By repeating this process for an interval of the well, a VSP-equivalent data set is generated. Results from a test well demonstrate that the processed drill-bit data are comparable to conventional VSP data.