(Inner Mongolia) Yimin Coalfield

Yimin Coalfield is a coal basin in the Hulunbeir basin group of the coal gathered region in Northeast of China. It is located within the boundaries of Ewenke Nationality of Inner Mongolia, whose plane is like a strip .There are 50km from south to north, 700km from east to west.Yimin River crosses the middle of the coalfield. At present, the development and exploring are concentrated in the section of 90 km² in the middle of the coalfield which is 85km away from Haila’er City and the exclusive railway lines have been built in there.

1. Geological structure

The basin group of Hulunbei which were developed in early time of Later Jurassic Epoch above the volcanic rock group of Xing'anling is a series of inland caved basins whose arrange is like the flying formation of geese and direction is from north to east.Yimin Coalfield is the one whose deposit has been known. The trend of the plane of the basin is from north to east .There are the rifts in the edges of the east and west, which are all normal fault. The strata of the coal basin are mainly the coal bearing ones of Later Jurassic Epoch and the Early Cretaceous Epoch .They constitute a series of wide and gentle synclines and anticlines whose trend is from north to east and the axis of the synclines and anticlines are mainly short .The dip angle of the coal bearing stratum is gentle, smaller than 10º.There is a few middle and small size fault.

2. Coal System

The coal bearing stratum of Yimin Coalfield is called Lainuo'er Group, which consists of two parts. The lower part is Moguai River Formation, 1300m thick; the upper part is Yimin Formation, 500-800m thick. Both the two parts consist of sand stones of land facies, mudstones, siltstones and coal seams, while there are many tuff sand stones in the Damoguai River Formation .There are 13 of coal bearing strata in the Damoguai River Formation, most of which are minable.The coal seams become thinner from east to west, and the average thickness of the minable seams is over 110m.

3. Coal resources

The total amount of the coal resources in Yimin Coalfield is 17.7G.The proved coal deposits are 5Gt .The coal types in the explored area are all brown coals, besides a few gas coals, fat coals, coking coals, meager coals near the five pastures in the north of Liaoqu.

4. Mining condition

The coal seams of Yimin Coalfield are thick and gentle. The shallow part can be mined in the open air. Half of the coalfield whose deposits are known can be mined in the open air. The coalfield has plenty of water which is from surface, rain and underground pressure bearing water. The dredging measure should be enforced in the process of mining .The roof and floor of the seam are mainly mudstones and mud siltstone. The stability of the marginal slope is weak when carrying out the opencast mining.

5. The brief introduction of development

Yimin Coalfield was discovered in 1959 by the prediction of coalfield. In 1970s, it ran large scale geologic exploration of the coalfield and then the construction of open cuts started. In October of 1984, No.1 opencut put into production, and the capacity was 1.00MT/A.The yearly output of it was 1.30MT.In 1995, the annual output of the open air mining area had been 5.00MT.