The Status Quo and Outlook of Chinese Coal Geology and Exploration Technologies

Abstract: Coal is China's dominant energy resource. Coal geological exploration is the basis of sustainable development of coal industry. Since the late 1990s, the advances in Chinese coal geology and exploration techniques have been shown in the following aspects. (1) The basic research of coal geology has changed from traditional geological studies to earth system science; (2) Breakthroughs have been achieved in integrated exploration techniques for coal resources; (3) Evaluation of coal and coalbed methane resources provides important basis for macropolicy making for China's coal industry and construction of large coal bases; (4) Significant advances have been made in using information technology in coal geological exploration and 3S (GPS, GIS, RS) technology. For the present and a period of time in the future, major tasks of Chinese coal geological technology are as follows: (1) solving resources replacement problem in eastern China and geological problems of deep mining; (2) solving problem of integrated coal exploration of complex regions in energy bases of central China, and resources problems induced by coal exploitation; (3) making efforts to enhance the level of geological research and resources evaluation of coal‐accumulation basins in western China; (4) strengthening geological research of clean coal technologies; (5) strengthening geological research of the problems in modern coal mining and safe production; (6) promoting information technology in coal resources and major geological investigations.