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How is coal mined?

Mining is the process of removing coal from the ground.

There are two types of mining: underground mining and surface mining. When the coal seam is fewer than 125 feet under the surface, it is mined by surface mining. Coal that is deeper than 125 feet is removed from the ground by underground mining.

Surface Mining (Opencast Mining)

Surface Mining is used when a coal seam is located close to the surface. Heavy equipment is used to clear the land of trees, shrubs and topsoil.

Holes are drilled into the rock and explosives are placed in these holes. The explosion breaks up the dirt and rock called overburden.

Large earth-moving machines move the overburden to expose the coal seam. When the coal is uncovered, bulldozers and shovels scoop up the coal and load it into large trucks. All of the coal is mined.

In 2000, there were six surface mines in Illinois. The surface mines produced 3,800,000 tons of coal and employed 330 miners. After mining the topsoil is replaced for plants and wildlife to grow again.

When the trucks are loaded, they will haul the coal
to the preparation plant.

Safety inspectors carefully monitor the drilling and blasting
process.

Dumper - Open Cast Mining

Underground Mining

Underground Mining is used when the coal seam lies deep in the earth. In an underground mine only some of the coal is removed. The coal that remains helps support the mine roof.

Underground mines look like a system of tunnels. The tunnels are used for traveling throughout the mine, moving coal from place to place and allowing air to circulate in the mine.

The coal that is mined is put on conveyor belts. The conveyor belts take the coal to the surface.

There are three types of underground mines: slope, drift, and shaft. When the coal seam is close to the surface but too deep to use surface mining, a slope mine can be built. In a slope mine a tunnel slants down from the surface to the coal seam.

A drift mine is built when the coal seam lies in the side of a hill or mountain. Drift mines may also be built in a surface mine that has become too deep. There are many drift mines in the eastern United States.

The most common type of mine in Illinois is the shaft mine. These mines may be 125 to 1,000 feet deep. A large hole, or shaft, is drilled down into the ground until it reaches the coal seam.

Source: Based in New Delhi for Getty Images, photographer Daniel Berehulak writes for LightBox about his photo essay documenting the working life of coal miners in the Jaintia Hills.

I traveled to India’s far northeast last month, before the monsoon rains set in and rendered the mines unworkable for the summer. In the Jaintia Hills, in the remote state of Meghalaya, miners descend to great depths on slippery, rickety wooden ladders. Men, women, even children squeeze into ‘rat hole’ tunnels lacing thousands of privately-owned and unregulated mines. There, they toil to extract coal by hand with primitive tools and no safety equipment.

I was unsure of what the story would hold or the conditions I would face. I spent a week there, though two days were lost to arguing with ‘guides’ who, we believe, were hired by the mine owners to keep us from reporting. We eventually got underground to witness what miners were enduring to scratch out such a sad and meager existence.

As I was shooting an image of miners being lifted out from a shaft, about 300-feet deep, I wondered what I would do if the cable were to break and come crashing down. That is how four miners had died only weeks earlier. Where could I hide? Narrow shafts do not offer many escape routes beyond a few ‘rat hole tunnels’ that are two or three feet high.

Prabhat Sinha, from Assam, carries a load of coal weighing 60kg's, supported by a head-strap, as he ascends the staircase of a coal mine near the village of Khliehriat, in the district of Jaintia Hills, India. miners descend to great depths on slippery, rickety wooden ladders. Children and adults squeeze into rat hole like tunnels in thousands of privately owned and unregulated mines, extracting coal with their hands or primitive tools and no safety equipment.

Workers load coal onto trucks at a mine in the Jaintia hills, located in India's far North East state of Meghalaya.

Fourteen-year-old Chhai Lyngdoh, kicks out the coal from a container, as it is emptied onto a heap, after being craned out of a 300ft deep mine shaft.

Workers load coal onto a truck at a coal depot.

20 year old Anil Basnet pushes a coal cart, as he and a fellow worker pull coal out from the rat hole tunnel 300 ft below the surface.

22 year old Shyam Rai from Nepal pauses as he works, digging out coal, using hands and a pick to get at the seams of coal.

A crane lifts miners out of a 300ft deep mine shaft, as they head out for their lunch break.

A miner unloads tools after being hoisted from the depths of a coal mine.

Coal miners wash themselves off as they break for lunch at a coal mine.

A crane lifts miners out of the 300ft deep shaft of a coal mine.

12 year old Abdul Kayum from Assam pauses for a portrait, whilst working at a coal depot carrying coal to be crushed

Workers load coal onto trucks at a coal depot. After traversing treacherous mountain roads, the coal is delivered to neighbouring Bangladesh and to Assam from where it is distributed all over India, to be used primarily for power generation and as a source of fuel in cement plants.