Coal

A

3

Slope Mining

Slope mining occurs when an inclined opening is used to tap the coal seam (or seams). A slope mine may follow the coal seam if the seam is inclined and exposed to the surface, or the slope may be driven through rock strata overlying the coal to reach a seam. Coal transportation from a slope mine can be accomplished by conveyor or by track haulage (using a trolley locomotive if the grade is not severe) or by pulling mine cars up the slope using an electric hoist and steel rope if the grade is steep. The most common practice is to use a belt conveyor.

A

4

Contour Mining

Contour mining occurs on hilly or mountainous terrain, where workers use excavation equipment to cut into the hillside along its contour to remove the overlying rock and then mine the coal. The depth to which workers must cut into the hillside depends on factors such as hill slope and coal bed thickness.

A

5

Auger Mining

Auger mining is frequently employed in open-pit mines where the thickness of the overburden is too great for open-pit mining to be cost-effective. Open-pit mining would require the lengthy and costly removal of the overburden, whereas auger mining is more efficient because it cuts through the overburden and removes the coal as it drills. In this technique, the miners drill a series of horizontal holes into the coal bed with a large auger (drill) powered by a diesel or gasoline engine. These augers are typically about 60 m (200 ft) long and 0.6 to 2.1 m (2 to 7 ft) in diameter. As these enormous drills bore into the coal seam, they discharge coal like a wood drill producing wood shavings. Additional auger lengths are added as the cutting head of the auger penetrates farther into the coal. Penetration continues until the cutting head drifts into the top or bottom of the coal seam, into a previous hole, or until the maximum torque (energy required to twist an object) of the auger is reached.

A

6

Satellite Aids to Surface Mining

In the late 1990s some coal mining enterprises used technologies such as the global positioning system (GPS) to help guide the positioning of mining equipment. Satellites operated by the United States Air Force Space Command and leased to companies for commercial use track the position of mining equipment against a map of a mine’s topography. This map uses colors to distinguish soil that should be excavated, soil that should remain in place, and areas that should be filled in. The equipment driver observes this visual information on a monitor while operating the equipment. Some coal mining enterprises have used GPS to increase mining efficiency up to 30 percent.

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B

Underground Mining

Underground, or deep, mining occurs when coal is extracted from a seam without removal of the overlying strata. Miners build a shaft mine that enters the earth through a vertical opening and descends from the surface to the coal seam. In the mine, the coal is extracted from the seam by various methods, including conventional mining, continuous mining, longwall mining, and room-and-pillar mining.

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