Introduction

Coal is the sedimentary or organic

rock, formed from deposition of ancient
plant remains in a long time (various
millions of years) mostly composed of
carbon (C), sulphur (S), hydrogen (H),
oxygen (O), nitrogen (N) and water (H2O)
and some inorganic elements (Gordon,
Wood, Thomas, Carter, & Culbertson,
1983). Coal is a heterogeneous substance,
with wide variability in composition
(Matuszewski, Vaysman, & Lu, 2012). The
system used for classifying of coals was
established by the American Society for
Testing and Materials (ASTM), by using the
volatile matter and fixed carbon content in
the proximate analysis along with the
heating value of the coal to establish the
coal rank. The coals were divided to four of
coal ranks as, the Lignite, Subbituminous,
Bituminous and Anthracite (ASTM
International Standards D388-15, 2015).
Coal is one of the worlds most
important of energy sources, almost 40% of
electricity in the worldwide (Schnapp &
Smith, 2012). In many countries as, the
Poland used coal for over 94% of electricity
generation, South Africa for 92%, China
77%, Australia 76% (Schnapp & Smith,
2012), Vietnam 32.6% (Chinh & Gheewala,
2008), and Thailand 20% (EGAT, 2015).
And coal has been used in various sector in
industrials including of cements production,
metals smelting, food industrial and another
industrial. The coal energy source has been
fastest growing in recent years, is faster than
oil, gas, nuclear, hydro and renewables
(Schnapp & Smith, 2012).
Recently, the applications of
geophysics explorations as seismic
reflection and electrical resistivity surveys
methods have been increasingly significant
in subsurface geology, hydrogeology,
minerals exploration, environmental and
engineering investigations (Telford, Geldart,
& Sheriff, 1990). During the last two
decades, the seismic reflection surveying
has been used successfully to investigate the
detailed of structural and stratigraphic
features of coal (Tselentis &

Paraskevopoulos, 2002) estima-ble from

publication, papers presented at technical
meetings (Gochioco, 1991), conference, and
a number of investigators employing either
2-D seismic techniques for examples, Coon
et al., 1978; Ziolkowski & Lerwill, 1979;
Daly, 1979; Acker and Kumamoto,1981;
Ruskey, 1981; Hughes & Kennett, 1983;
Harman, 1984; Greaves, 1984; Lawton,
1985; Greenhalgh et al., 1986; Palmer, 1987;
Lyatsky & Lawton, 1988; Gochioco &
Cotten, 1989; Henson & Sexton, 1991;
Gochioco, 1991a,b; Gochioco, 1992; Miller
et al., 1992; Pietsch & Slusarczyk, 1992;
Gang & Goulty, 1997; and Miller, Clough,
Barker, & Davis, 2002. The increasing for
seismic reflection application techniques
were adapted from the petroleum industry
that resulted in improvements in data
acquisition, processing, and interpretation
(Gochioco, 1991). The using of seismic
reflection data combine with drill-hole data
is a cost effective method of coal seams
mapping for exploration and exploitation
(Daly, 1979). And also, the resistivity was
used to subsurface geology and coal
exploration as used to investigate the coal
seam (Singh, Singh, Lokhande, & Prakash,
2004); fault detection (Torgashov, Anderson,
& Kovin, 2010); detect the contact between
sediment and bedrock (Hsu, Yanites, Chen,
& Chen, 2010); investigation continuity of
bedrock, coal seams and also to verify water
tightness (Rao, Majumder, Roy, Chaudhari,
& Ramteke, 2015); and was applied of 2D
electrical resistivity tomography to
engineering projects (Arjwech & Everett,
2015).
The following case study aims to use
of the seismic reflection and electrical
resistivity tomography methods in
evaluating and to map the structure of coal
seam, seam thickness, depth, and continuity
of coal seam, bedrock structure and
surrounding materials in subsurface at the
coal seam area was obviously exposed along
the highway 2216 by road cut outcrop
between Ban Huai Sanam Sai and Ban PaRuak, Khok Mon Sub-district, Nam Nao
District, Phetchabun Province, Northern
Thailand.

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