Mine earthquake mechanism of extremely thick strata based on focalmemchanism analysis

In the Ordos mining area of North China, the Jurassic coal seam is commonly overlain by extremely thick cretaceous sandstone strata. Based on the seismic displacement field and relative moment tensor inversion method, this paper investigates the mine earthquake mechanism and roof fracture characteristics of coal seams under extremely thick strata. In this study, by using seismic source groups as units and microseismic stations as objects, the source mechanism of mine earthquakes is inverted by constructing an inversion matrix, which greatly improves the inversion efficiency and accuracy. The focal mechanism of large-energy mine earthquakes located in solid coal section and goaf section under extremely thick strata is calculated. The characteristics of roof fracture evolution and the influence of vibration wave radiation are quantitatively analyzed. The results show that the extremely thick strata of Cretaceous goaf start to break when the panel below retreats along goaf. During this period, the surface subsidence increases rapidly, and the significant mine earthquakes with energy above 100 kJ begin to occur, and the mine earthquake distribution is more concentrative than that in the solid coal stage. Most of the large-energy mine earthquakes are located behind the goaf, which is closely related to the breakage and slide of the thick roof. Roof tension rupture accounts for more than 85% of the mine earthquakes. During mining along goaf, the seismic sources tend to expand upward, and more shear slip ruptures are presented compared with that in the solid coal mining stage. The strike of the fracture surface has a similar direction or an angle of “X” with the advancing direction. However, compared with that in the solid coal stage, the angle of “X” during mining along goaf increases from 30° to 45°. For the source rupture surface, the dip angle of between 0°−30° accounts for about 50% of the total. The failure type of roof is dominated by horizontal separation tension and roof rotation compression. The generated P waves mostly propagate to the goaf below, which causes a minor influence on the mining face. Only a small part of the P waves propagate to the surrounding working face, which may pose a great impact on the working face. The prevention and control strategy on the extremely-thick-strata type mine earthquakes can be conducted by weakening the integrity of thick strata and making thick strata break in tiers, aiming to reduce the rockburst risks to the working face induced by the breakage of the whole thick strata.