MANAGING AND MANIPULATING COAL GEOLOGY MAPS AND DATA WITH GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) TECHNOLOGY: THE WEST VIRGINIA EXPERIENCE

Coal and coal mining are important to West Virginia's economy and the nation's energy independence, but the impact on West Virginia is more multi-faceted. Accurate, up-to-date mapping and information about coal geology and coal mining in the state is in demand for issues like future economic impact, mine safety, development of all kinds, assessment of environmental impact of mining, assessment and remediation of abandoned mine land problems, fair and equitable taxation, and many others. Geographic Information System (GIS) technology provides tools not only for creation and efficient storage of coal geology and resource maps, but also provides means to manipulate the information for focused analyses.

Since 1995, West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey (WVGES) geologists have been systematically re-mapping the many economically important coal beds of the state utilizing GIS. Final products for each coal bed are GIS themes including: structural contours and outcrops; net coal, total bed height, and percent partings isopach maps; depth-of-overburden maps; mined areas; coal bed discontinuities; thickness and elevation control points; coal quality variation; and others. Compilation of active and an estimated 100,000 abandoned underground mines, coupled with structural contours and outcrops, is valuable information to help avoid unintended cut-throughs thereby insuring miners' safety; for monitoring water-filled abandoned mines and assessing the blowout potential; for assessing mine subsidence risk; and many others. Grid models of coal thickness offer unlimited flexibility to calculate and catagorize tonnage estimates or to characterize them with other parameters such as coal quality parameters. Coal thickness grids can be combined with grid models of the overburden to create yards-of-overburden to tons-of-coal ratio maps, useful for identifying areas suitable for mountaintop surface mining, or to identify areas of coal beds suitable for CO2 sequestration. GIS also gives users the ability to combine WVGES coal themes with data sets they have created. For example, comparison of dam and impoundment locations and elevations with coal-mined areas and structural contours could identify areas of potential impoundment or dam failure from mine subsidence.