A Review of Geophysical Exploration Technology for Mine Water Disaster in China: Applications and Trends

Geophysical exploration can be effective in detecting and monitoring potential sources of coal mine water in-rushes and underground watercourses. Generally, in-mine seismic, DC resistivity, and transient electromagnetic methods are used for such purposes in China. However, such technologies can be influenced by many factors, such as roadways, fissures in the surrounding rocks, and various secondary conditions. Our review of current geophysical methods and tools concludes that further basic research should be carried out on geophysical field propagation in the whole space, data collection methods, and inversion methods appropriate for the special environment of coal mines. Moreover, borehole and roadway space should be designed to incorporate effective geophysical drilling, cross-hole exploration, drilling-roadway exploration, and roadway-roadway exploration. Future hydrogeophysical exploration research should focus on comprehensive geophysical methods combining multi-field synergistic observations with multi-field data integration and automatic monitoring as well as early warning systems for mine water disasters combining real-time processing and analysis of exploration equipment with Internet of Things technology.