Integrated seismic–geological prediction of tectonic coal via main controlling factors.

Tectonic coal in coal seams not only seriously restricts the development of coalbed methane (CBM), but also easily forms coal and gas outburst risk areas. Therefore, it is of great significance to effectively predict the tectonic coal in coal seams under the development scale. Currently, the prediction methods of tectonic coal include geological prediction and geophysical prediction. Due to the large scale of geological analysis and the low identifiability of geophysical response of thin coal seam, these two methods are difficult to meet the prediction requirements of tectonic coal in the development process. Therefore, this paper proposes a new method for predicting tectonic coal based on seismic–geological integrated analysis of main controlling factors. Firstly, the control factors of tectonic coal and their quantitative characterization are determined by geological analysis. Then, the characterization parameters of control factors are obtained by various seismic technologies. Finally, the main control factors are screened by grey correlation analysis, and the prediction model of tectonic coal distribution is established by using the main control factors, and applied in the Qinshui Basin. The results show that the structure, surrounding rock lithology and coal thickness are three kinds of geological factors controlling the development of tectonic coal and the control weight of each factor is different. Structure plays the most important role in controlling the development of tectonic coal, followed by coal thickness and surrounding rock lithology. The prediction error of two verification wells is less than 2%, which indicates that the method can provide effective guidance for coal structure evaluation in the process of CBM development and coal mining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]