Том: Vol.3 , Уear of publication: 2011

Place of publication: San Francisco

A new method is proposed for locating free methane accumulation sites. The basis for this method is the concept of change in the stressed state of coal seam in the process of its mining, as well as volume density of fractures filled with gas and elastic properties of fractured zones. Repeated seismic soundings of the seam allow us to reveal such unstable sections by disturbances of wave travel times. The calculated relations and results of numerical experiments carried out with the use of transversally isotropic model for the fractured zones of coal seam are presented. The areas of variation in parameters of seismic-wave velocity anisotropy are determined applying a tomographic approach