Dynamic Construction and Uncertainty Assessment for 3D Coal-Seam Models in Northern Dongsheng Coalfield

This paper explores three issues related with the current coal-seam modeling, namely, integration of multi-source geological data, dynamic modeling and uncertainty assessment for the modeling results by studying 3D coal-seam modeling of five prospect areas from Ailaiwukugou to Taijizhao located in northern Dongsheng coalfield in Inner Mongolia. Firstly, data integration is carried out according to its inherent logic and outer geometrical relationship. The former translates data into sections or profiles, and the latter further converts them into a uniform simple format, which is called uniform discretized samples. Secondly, based on these samples and boundary lines, inverse distance weighting (IDW) method is employed to evaluate the height of both top and base floor of coal layer and then 3D coal models are dynamically built according to these attribute values by triangulated irregular network (TIN). Thirdly, interpolation variance, an alternative uncertainty measurement for IDW estimates, is applied to assess uncertainty of the resulting 3D coal-seam models. Finally, the whole modeling workflow is discussed in detail and implemented based upon a 3D geo-information system named QuantyView. In the application in our study area, the proposed method works well in dynamically modeling the coal layers and their uncertainties in multi-source geological data environment, which shows that it is practical and feasible for 3D modeling in other coalfields.