Coal Mine Burst Prevention Controls 

Anthony T. Iannacchione, Principal Research Engineer 

Stephen C. Tadolini, Chief, Rock Safety Engineering Branch 

NIOSH-Pittsburgh Research Laboratory 

Pittsburgh, PA
 

1

 The authors use the term coal burst to avoid showing a preference for the 

eastern designation of coal bumps or the western usage of coal bounces. 

ABSTRACT 

Coal mine bursts have represented a major hazard for U.S. 

mining operations for more than 90 years. During this time, many 

prevention controls have been developed and tested. This paper 

reviews 11 prevention control techniques. Although coal mine 

bursts are not common events in most underground coal mines, 

their occurrence almost always requires a change in mining practice. 

Over the many years of dealing with these hazards, specialized 

requirements for layouts and novel extraction sequences have been 

developed on a site specific basis. The keys to mitigating risks are 

to properly assess the coal burst hazards and to possess the 

knowledge and skills to prevent or remediate their occurrence. 

INTRODUCTION 

 Coal bursts 1 are violent failures of ribs, roof or floor in 

underground coal mines. This hazard is not new to the US mining 

industry. Coal bursts are known to occur in complex ways and 

often under unique sets of conditions. This has made them 

extremely difficult to control or forecast. As one might expect, 

there have been many engineered prevention controls proposed to 

mitigate the devastating effects of these dynamic and violent 

failures. Over the years, specialized requirements for mine layouts 

and novel mining sequences have been developed on a site specific 

basis to more safely extract burst prone coal. While none of these 

prevention controls should be considered a “stand alone” design 

method, they are extremely useful when an operation is assessing 

its coal burst hazard and evaluating controls to help mitigate the 

associated risks. A coal burst risk assessment calls for engineers, 

managers and safety professionals, especially those who might deal 

with this hazard on a regular basis, to understand how to use these 

historically proven prevention controls. 

Coal mine burst prevention controls tend to focus on qualitative 

solutions to very specific conditions. Operators need to consider 

the prevention control that most closely relates to the fundamental 

factors that are capable of producing coal burst hazards at their 

respective mines. Also, many of the following prevention controls 

can be thought of as recommendations or definition of things to do 

or not to do. They rarely provide methodologies to quantify actions 

lying between these two end-points. It should also be noted that 

this study did not discuss remediation controls, i.e., destressing. 

ROOM-AND-PILLAR MINING ISSUES 

Uniform Pillar Size and Shape 

Early on, mining practitioners noted that uniform pillar sizes 

are less likely to produce burst prone conditions than layouts with a 

range of pillar sizes (Holland and Thomas, 1954). Reeves (1954) 

expressed apprehension in allowing abutment pillars to occur next 

to the gob. Large pillars are stiffer, and tend to deform or converge 

much less than their small chain pillar counter-parts. These stiffer 

structures tend to gather load. If they are then mined, there is a 

high potential for violent failure due to the larger pillar’s greater 

energy storage capacity. Uniform pillar sizes are generally 

considered to be more advantageous during room-and-pillar mining; 

however, other controls may be necessary to fully mitigate coal 

burst hazards. 

An example of this occurred in 1982 at the Olga Mine in 

southern West Virginia (Campoli, et al., 1987). Two miners were 

fatally injured while mining a pillar that contained gob on two sides. 

At the time of the accident, the pillar had been split into a number 

of different size pillars, including one large critical-size pillar, one 

smaller critical-size pillar and nine yield pillars (figure 1). The 

large critical-size pillar violently burst as it was being mined. 

Uniform Extraction Fronts 

When coal pillar bursts first began to occur in eastern 

Kentucky (Bryson, 1936), many of them were occurring along the 

retreating pillar line where uneven pillar lines were observed. 

Holland and Thomas (1954) realized that this practice was 

dangerous and issued a recommendation to avoid “pillar-line 

points”. These section-wide mine plans can contribute to coal 

mine bursts when overlapping abutment pressures from 

converging gob lines cause excessive stress conditions in the 

pillar-line point area. The C-2 Mine bursts on November 20, 

1996 that injured 6 miners, two fatally, provides one recent 

example where converging pillar lines were thought to be at least 
partially responsible for the event (figure 2). It should be noted 

that there may be limits to the width of a uniform extraction front. 

Notely (1984), writing about coal bursts at the Springhill Coal 

Mine in Nova Scotia, Canada, provides evidence of this. Early in 

1958, a series of bursts occurred at the mine that was thought to 

be caused by the staggered mining of three adjacent longwall 

faces. In an effort to rectify this problem, the mine operator 

altered the mining of these three longwall panels until one large 

mining front was formed. Unfortunately, this alignment was 

associated with the devastating October 24, 1958 Springhill coal 

mine bursts, where 74 miners were fatally injured. In this case, a 

very wide cave zone may have failed catastrophically, causing the 

fatal burst condition. 

Large critical sized pillar Gob 

Gob 

Small critical sized pillar Yield pillars 

Abutment pillar 

next to gob 

Figure 1. A larger, critically-sized pillar surrounded by 

smaller, critically-sized pillars and yield pillars near a gob acts 

to concentrate stresses and pose an increased risk for coal 

bursts. 

Gob 

Pillar failure index (0-5) (1000 ft) Failed ribs w/ red coal 

C Coal in

SC M opening 

RB 

victims 

S 

Gob Failed ribs 

(130 ft) 

Equipment 

Figure 2. Map of the conditions observed by MSHA personnel after the C-2 Mine burst where converging pillar extraction fronts 

concentrated stresses at points of intersection. 

Bump-Cut 

 When pillar extraction occurs under excessive stresses and the 

pillars are critically-sized chain pillars, it is sometimes advisable to 

take a bump-cut of approximately 20 ft in length driven from the 

center of the rib toward the pillar core. The name was given to this 

individual cut sequence because of the frequent occurrence of 

audible seismic events that sound like thumps or bumps. The 

origin of the bump-cut method is unknown, but examination of old 

mining maps in the central Appalachian Coal Fields show that it 

was in use by the 1960’s. The bump-cut should be the first cut that 

is extracted from a pillar during retreat mining. Typically this cut 

is made in the center of a critically-sized pillar so that the 

remaining coal, left on either side of the bump-cut, will readily 

yield. If the pillar is highly stressed, the bump-cut can act to 

release the load in a controlled fashion to adjacent pillars. In this 

way, a bump-cut is a means of destressing the pillar prior to full 

extraction with the continuous mining machine. The Deer Creek 

Mine in Utah (figure 3) has used the bump-cut method to destress a 

number of highly-stressed critical pillars along one of its gate entry 

developments (Iannacchione and Zelanko, 1995). 

Pillar Sequencing 

 In the west, the Kenilworth Mines used a sequencing method 

to mine pillars along retreating extraction fronts (Reeves, 1954). 

This technique involved moving between as many as 5 pillars 

along the extraction line to gradually destress the pillars. The 

drill-and-blast mining system used at the Kenilworth Mine, lent 

itself to multiple active working faces. In the east, the Olga 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mines in southern West Virginia developed a systematic pillar 

sequencing method over many years of trial-and-error work. This 

retreat mining technique involves the sequential mining of 

numerous places over three to four rows of pillars in order to 

gradually direct the overburden loads away from the pillar line, 

where most of the miners and machines are located. An idealized 

schematic of the extraction sequence is shown in figure 4. By 

design, all coal pillars three rows outby the gob line would have at 

least a bump-cut. This bump-cut is mined from the middle of the 

crosscut toward the pillar core. When the pillars are two rows 

outby the gob line, they are split in half by extending the bump-cut 

entirely through the pillar. Finally, the pillar wings or fenders are 

extracted in the row closest to the gob line. Observations of the 

redistribution of rock pressures associated with this specific mining 

sequence were made by Campoli, et al., (1990a). The advantage of 

this system is that it avoids the use of multiple working places 

within a single pillar. 

Figure 3. Example of partial pillar destressing method 

employed at the Deer Creek Mine. 

Figure 4. An idealized schematic of the extraction sequence 

used at the Olga Mine. 

Barrier Pillar Splitting (Thin-Pillar Method) 

In many large drift mines, during the later portion of a mines 

life-cycle, when it has developed to the full extent of its available 

reserves, the mine will begin to retreat toward its original mine 

entries. During this process, the barrier pillars that had been left to 

protect the main developments from the full extraction sections are 

mined. Many of these barrier pillars are bounded by at least one 

gob and can have in many cases two gob boundaries. Holland and 

Thomas (1954) recommended the barrier pillars be split into 

smaller sized pillars far in advance of the full-extraction mining 

process. The barrier pillars are highly loaded from the mininginduced stresses of the main entry development and the pillaring 

operations of the old gob. The additional loading from the current 

pillar line only compounds this situation. 

The thin-pillar mining method was developed at the Gary No. 2 

Mine in the 1950’s and reported by Talman and Schroder (1958). 

The thin-pillar method segments the large barrier into chains of 

yield pillars (figure 5). During thin pillar mining, it is imperative 

that mining does not occur in areas that are excessively stressed. 

However, the thin yield pillars need to undergo some softening due 

to the pillar line loading. Therefore, outby thin pillar development 

must remain near the gob line. By design, the first cut into the 

barrier pillar that begins to outline a new thin pillar, encounters the 

most critical stresses. Mucho, et al. (1993) documented this 

process and analyzed the various signs used by the mine operator to 

evaluate the conditions of the pillars. 

Figure 5. Typical mining sequence utilizing the thin-pillar 

method. Numbers indicate mining sequence order. Dual 

numbers indicate areas mined simultaneously (After Talman 

and Schroeder, 1958). 

LONGWALL MINING ISSUES 

Gate Entry Designs 

In the eastern U.S., longwall mine designs in burst-prone 

ground centered on altering the size and shape of the gate entry 

pillars. This distinction between western and eastern coal mines 

was a direct result of their different ventilation requirements. 

Methane gas accumulations in the longwall gob and longwall 

bleeder entries represented a continuous challenge for these mining 

operations. Multiple gate entry designs were employed to increase 

provided the delivery of greater fresh air to the longwall face and 

inby to the bleeder entries in gassy mines. The gate entry pillars 

are designed to remain sufficiently stable to allow ventilating air to 

pass through the headings and into the inby bleeder entries where 

the methane coming from the longwall gobs is diluted to acceptable 

levels. These pillars had the added advantage of resisting load rideover onto the active longwall face, thereby minimizing burst 

hazards in the face area. 

Originally longwall gate entries were comprised of two or 

three rows of chain pillars (figure 6a). The first burst control 

technique was to use the yield-chain-chain design (figure 6b) to 

protect miners working near or within the tailgate entries. The 

yield pillar is designed to shed load and therefore is not expected 

to present a burst hazard at the tailgate corner. The yield-chainyield design (figure 6c) positions the yield pillars adjacent to both 

the head and tailgate, again to lessen the potential for bursts 
adjacent to these high traffic areas. The yield-abutment-yield 

design (figure 6d) utilizes an abutment pillar to protect the active 

longwall panel from the adjacent gob. This design was first 

utilized at the Jim Walters coal mines and brought to Virginia in 

the mid-80’s to help control bursts in the gassy Pocahontas coal 

mines (Hendon, 1998). Campoli et al., (1990b) verified the 

performance of these systems through a series of detailed field 

studies. 

a) 

c) 

b) 

d) 

Figure 6. Yield-chain-abutment gate entry designs used in mines with high methane emission rates and coal burst potential – a)

chain pillar design, b) yield-chain-chain pillar design, c) yield-chain-yield pillar design, and d) yield-abutment-yield design. 

Yield-Barrier Gate Entry Designs 

 As longwall mining increased during the 70’s and 80’s a 

number of innovative designs for controlling bursts were 

developed. The Mid-Continent coal mines in Colorado began to 

use a mining method where the longwall face advances slightly 

behind the developing gate entry headings (Reeves, 1978). This 

method is a modification of the advancing longwall system used 

extensively in Europe and Asia. It may help to control the burst 

hazards by reducing gate entry developments. In Utah, the 

Sunnyside coal mines, in cooperation with the US Bureau of 

Mines, experimented with a single entry system (Koehler, 1994). 

This system had the advantage of eliminating a major source of 

the burst hazards in longwall mining, the gate entry pillar. 

However, the major design used to mitigate bursts conditions in 

the western U.S. was the two-entry yield pillar system. 

 The ventilation requirements in western deep cover longwall 

mines were much different than eastern mines (Ferriter, 1985). 

First, the rugged terrain makes it very difficult to penetrate the 

longwall gobs with gob-vent boreholes or to place high-pressure, 

small diameter ventilation shafts within the bleeder system to 

adequately dilute the methane coming from the longwall gobs. 

These techniques are more popular in gassy eastern coal mines. 

Without these ventilation controls, it became increasingly difficult 

to dilute the methane gas to acceptable levels. Second, 

spontaneous combustion is a serious problem for western coal 

mines (Smith and Lazarra, 1987). The techniques most successful 

in mitigating spontaneous combustion rely on the removal of 

oxygen, largely by removing ventilating currents into the gob by 

deployment of ventilation seals around the longwall gob. This 

technique is known as the bleederless longwall system with Ushaped ventilation. The fresh air is typically delivered through the 

headgate entries, forced along the active longwall face, and carried 

away in the tailgate entries. In these ventilation systems, it is 

undesirable to have ventilation air pass beyond the face into the gob 

areas. The yield pillars are designed to yield outby the longwall 

face to facilitate full (tight) caving of the entries inby the face to 

hinder air movement between longwall gobs. A potential 

disadvantage of this design is that these yield pillars allow 

abutment load to ride over onto the longwall face and can increase 

bursts in the face area. 

The shallow-cover traditional western gate entry design has 

been the double row of chain pillars (figure 7a). Under burst 

prone conditions, this gate entry design proved inadequate 

because the chain pillars had the potential to burst as the longwall 

face passed. At some mines, a row of yield pillars were placed 

next to the longwall tailgate (figure 7b) to lessen the potential for 

bursts in this area. However, this layout didn’t eliminate the 

potential for headgate bursts. The two-entry yield pillar design 

was developed at the Sunnyside Mine to mitigate pillar bursts 

(figure 7c). This design is now used by many deep western 
 

 

 

 

longwall mines. Unfortunately, under depths greater than 2000 ft, 

the frequency of longwall face bumps increased. To combat this 

trend, the Andalex Mine began to leave a barrier pillar between the 

previously mined panel and the tailgate of the adjacent panel 

(figure 7d). This yield-barrier design has now been used by several 

deep longwall mines as a means of mitigating longwall face bursts. 

The barriers range in width from 300 ft to more than 600 ft. 

a) 

c) 

b) 

d) 

Figure 7. Gate entry designs used in mines with spontaneous combustion and burst potential - a) double chain pillar design, b) 

yield-chain pillar design, and c) yield pillar design and d) yield pillar-barrier design. 

Critical Pillar Concept 

The critical pillar concept for longwall gate entry systems 

identifies a certain range of pillar sizes that are more susceptible to 

coal bursts. Koehler, et al., (1996) define a critical pillar as one 

that is too large to either yield nonviolently or yield before the roof 

and floor sustain permanent damage, but is too small to support full 

longwall abutment loads. Ground control problems commonly 

associated with the use of critical pillars include frequent coal 

bumps, severe floor heave or roof damage and subsequent roof falls. 

A conceptualization of the relationship between critical pillars and 

yield and abutment pillars is presented in figure 8. The horizontal 

axis represents the minimum performance standard separating 

stable from unstable gate entry configurations. A pillar design 

whose performance falls above the horizontal axis is considered 

successful (stable), while a design whose performance falls below 

the horizontal axis is considered unsuccessful (unstable). 

Where the use of pillars with width-to-height ratios greater than 

3 to 5 is concerned, the concept of the critical pillar has often 

governed the performance experienced in deep western coal mines. 

DeMarco, et al., (1995) emphasized that increasing pillar width 

toward the critical-pillar range only invites the full weight of the 

overburden to be transmitted to a gate system that cannot possibly 

support it. As a result, critical pillars are to be considered 

extremely bump prone, even at shallow depths, when strong mine 

roof and floor conditions exist. 

MULTIPLE-SEAM DESIGN 

In an influential publication on multiple-seam mining, Mark 

(2007) discussed the different types of interactions: 

•	 Undermining, where stress concentrations caused by 

previous full extraction in an overlying seam is the main 

concern; and 

•	 Overmining, where previous full extraction in an 

underlying seam can result in stress concentrations and 

rock damage from subsidence. 

In this study, overmining was generally found to produce more 

difficult ground conditions than undermining, and isolated remnant 

pillars cause more problems than gob-solid boundaries. 

Multiple-seam mining has long been recognized as a 

contributing factor to the occurrence of coal bursts. One of the first 

U.S. longwall faces, Moss No. 2, experienced a burst on Jan. 8, 

1970 and a second burst occurred on July 30, 1970 on an adjacent 

room-and-pillar panel (Iannacchione and Zelanko, 1995). Both of 

these events occurred while mining under a transition from the 
remnant pillar to a gob area in an overlying mine (figure 9). A 

more common factor influencing coal bursts is mining beneath a 

large remnant. One example of this took place at the Moss No. 3 

Mine on Nov. 4, 1977. A burst occurred while splitting an 

abutment pillar in the Upper Banner Coalbed, located directly 

below another isolated abutment pillar in the overlying Thick Tiller 

Coalbed (figure 10). These two examples suggest that active 

operations may have a greater coal burst threat when mining 

beneath an overlying mine rather than mining over one, especially 

when the overlying mine has remnant pillars. 

Figure 8. Conceptualization of the critical pillar concept 

showing the transition from successful yield pillar systems, 

through unsuccessful critical designs, to successful abutment 

pillar system (Koehler, et. al, 1996). 

Gate EntrGate Entry Performance 

UnstableUnstable Stable 

Yielding pillars 

Abutment pillars 

Coal bursts 

are moreare more likely 

Critical pillars 

Increasing Pieasing Pillar Widthllar Width 

Remnant 

pillars 

Longwall

panel
 July 30, 1970 

Gob

Jan. 8, 19n. 8, 1970 

Figure 9. Coal burst events associated with longwall and roomand-pillar mining at the Moss No. 2 Mine and the location of 

overlying remnant pillar and gob mining. 

Upper mine Lower mine 

Bursts 

Lower 

abutment

pillar
 

Upper 

abutment 

pillar 

Figure 10. Burst occurred while splitting an abutment pillar 

located directly below an overlying large remnant pillar, Moss 

No. 3 Mine. 

 There are a number of rules that have been identified 

concerning how different overlying and underlying mine layout 

configurations can impact stress concentrations (Mark, 2007). For 

example, mining from the gob to the solid generally results in 

lower stress concentrations than from the solid to the gob. The type 

of remnant pillar structure (gob-solid boundary or isolated barrier) 

in overlying and underlying workings influences the degree of 

multiple-seam interaction. Isolated barriers cause more stress 

concentration problems than gob-solid boundaries (Mark, 2007). 

NIOSH’s Analysis of Multiple Seam Stability (AMSS) program 

can be used to evaluate the impact of multiple-seam mining on 

ground conditions. For more complex three-dimensional cases, 

where distribution of gob-side abutment loads between side 

abutment pillars and chain pillars are present, a numerical 

simulation is needed to determine the loading conditions. One of 

the most popular codes for stress and displacement evaluations is 

LAMODEL (Heasley, 1997). 

ISOLATION AND AVOIDANCE PRACTICE 

 When the geologic and stress environments are well understood 

and burst conditions are highly probable, the best alternative is to 

avoid this area. If the hazard is thought to be associated with a 

particular geologic discontinuity or with an unwanted multiple 

seam configuration, isolation and avoidance may be required. An 

example of this occurred at the Lynch No. 37 Mine in Kentucky. 

This mine began operating in a new longwall district where a 

channel sandstone was observed to intersect several panels. The 

operation had not encountered these features in the past. The 

channels in this area were relatively narrow and did not scour more 

than one-foot into the top of the coalbed. Therefore, the coal height 

was sufficient for continuous longwall mining. However when 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

longwall mining encountered the first channel, a large burst 

occurred (figure 11). A second burst occurred before the longwall 

face could mine from underneath the channel. The mine operator 

had decided to “move around” the channel in the next longwall 

panel. As the longwall face approached the channel another face 

burst occurred. For this mine, the primary prevention control was 

to move around the projected paths of the sandstone channels to 

lessen the potential for coal bursts events (figure 11). 

Coal bursts Coal bursts 

Move around Move around 

Sandstoneandstone 

Channel 

Figure 11. Longwall panels at the Lynch No. 37 Mine with 

associated sandstone channels and the locations of two large 

bursts events. 

Large scale geologic discontinuities, i.e. faults, dikes, etc., have 

also been observed in close proximity to many coal bursts 

suggesting that they have some effect on the way the coal is loaded 

by the adjacent strata (Peparakis, 1958; Iannacchione and DeMarco, 

1992; Maleki, 1981; Cox, et al., 1995; DeMarco, et al., 1995; and 

Osterwald, et al., 1993) 

ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROLS, PERSONAL 

PROTECTIVE GEAR AND BARRIERS 

Administrative controls, personal protective gear and barriers 

are generally used when engineering controls are not sufficient to 

mitigate the burst hazards at a mine. In some cases, it was 

possible to eliminate the risk presented by coal burst hazards 

simply through administrative controls that removed the miner 

from the hazardous environment. In other cases, it was necessary 

to provide the miners with protective gear to protect against outbursting material. Barriers, i.e. belting deployed from the tips of 

shield canopies, etc., are also often used to shield the miners from 

the hazardous burst. These approaches were recently adopted at 

the Tower Mine in Utah (Anon, 2007). The mine operator installed 

equipment that allowed the longwall to be operated remotely or 

autonomously away from the most hazardous locations. The 

success of this control has not been determined, but the recent 

closing of the mine suggests some problems may have been 

encountered. 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

Coal mine bursts have been associated with underground 

mining for at least the last 90 years in parts of five states: Utah, 

Colorado, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky, During this time, 

much information on the occurrence, control and remediation of 

these events has been collected, analyzed and documented in 

technical manuscripts. These reports chronicle the many 

innovations that characterize the US mining industry. Two forms 

of engineering controls are used: prevention controls, i.e. layouts 

that mitigate burst conditions, and remediation controls, i.e. 

destressing, volley firing, water injections, etc. Prevention controls 

must be applied early in the mining process, prior to the mining of 

burst prone coal. Remediation controls are typically used when a 

recognized burst hazard exists and an action is required to safely 

mine the coal. Finally, it is sometimes prudent to simply avoid 

mining in burst prone areas. This paper focuses on the prevention 

controls developed over the last 90 years. 

Coal mine burst prevention controls tend to focus on generic 

solutions to very specific conditions. Operators need to recognize 

the prevention control that most closely relates to the fundamental 

factors that are capable of producing coal burst hazards at their 

respective mines to achieve effective prevention control. 

Prevention controls examined in this paper are: 

•	 Uniform pillar size and shape control – Abnormal pillar 

sizes can act to attract loads that might normally be 

distributed to adjacent smaller pillars. 

•	 Uniform extraction fronts control - Uneven retreating of 

pillar lines can cause stress to accumulate at the point of 

intersection between these lines. 

•	 Bump-cut control - If the pillar is highly stressed, the 

bump-cut can act to release the load in a controlled 

fashion to adjacent pillars. In this way, a bump-cut is a 

means of destressing the pillar prior to full extraction 

with the continuous mining machine. 

•	 Pillar sequencing control – An effective means to redirect 

overburden loads away form the pillar line is 

accomplished by systematically mining small sections of 

pillars over three to four rows of pillars. 

•	 Barrier pillar splitting (Thin-pillar method) - It is 

essential that barriers be split into smaller sized pillars far 

in advance of the full-extraction mining process. The 

size of these smaller pillars needs to be carefully 

considered. Sometimes an abutment pillar strong enough 

to support the overburden should be left in place. 

•	 Yield-chain-abutment gate entry design (deep Eastern 

longwall mines) – High methane emissions require 

multiple gate entries (3 or more) in most deep and gassy 

eastern longwall mines. The use of an abutment pillar, 

flanked by yielding pillars, has proven to be an adequate 

gate entry layout in burst prone ground. 

•	 Yield-barrier gate entry design (deep Western longwall 

mines) – Two entry yielding pillar gate entry layouts 

have become the standard for mines with spontaneous 

combustion and burst hazards. Typically, these pillars 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

are not capable of storing dangerous levels of strain 

energy during the longwall passage. Barriers between 

panels have been added for the deepest longwall faces to 

help protect against abutment ride-over. 

•	 Critically-sized pillars - A critically-sized pillar is one 

that is too large to either yield nonviolently or yield 

before the roof and floor sustain permanent damage but is 

too small to support full longwall abutment loads. Such 

pillars should be avoided. 

•	 Multiple-seam design – Mining beneath an existing 

overlying mine can increase the potential for coal mine 

bursts, especially when the overlying mine has remnant 

pillars. 

•	 Isolation and avoidance - In some situations the burst 

hazard may present a risk that the mining operation is not 

willing to take. In this case, the best alternative is to 

avoid the area. This is best accomplished when the 

geologic and stress environments are well understood. 

In conclusion, coal mine bursts are not common events in most 

underground coal mines. However when a burst occurs, it almost 

always represents a major hazard. There are a number of 

fundamental factors that influence their occurrence, producing a 

range of hazards and requiring a complex set of controls to lower 

mine worker and operational risk. Over the many years of dealing 

with this hazard, specialized requirements for layouts and novel 

extraction sequences have been developed on a site specific basis to 

safely mine coal when fundamental factors are present that promote 

the occurrence of bursts. The risks associated with these hazards 

can only be lessened if engineers, managers and safety 

professionals understand how to assess these risks and possess the 

knowledge to prevent or remediate their occurrence. 

Disclaimer 

The findings and conclusions in this paper have not been 

formally disseminated by the National Institute for Occupational 

Safety and Health and should not be construed to represent any 

agency determination or policy. 

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