Abstract: With China's coal mining center shifts westward, a high-intensity mining has been carried out in the China's western provinces and municipalities on a large scale and the trend will continue.The failure characteristics of ground movement and deformation, overlying strata and environmental impact were discussed, and the calculation formula of caving zone height and the height of water flowing fractured zone (“Two-zone”height) were given, based on the analysis on the distribution of coal bases, target location, annual output, geological conditions of coal and measured data from typical high-intensity mining coal mine.Based on the severe failure of overlying strata after mining, a large number of discontinuous deformations and no creep, the combination mechanism model “elastic thin plate”plus “parallel stress arch”that studying the failure of overlying strata was put forward.According to simulation and theoretical mechanics analysis, and the model was in line with the process and mechanism due to high-intensity coal mining face.