Can you show a picture of a coal mine in West Virginia?

Answer 1

If you do to Google, and select IMAGES from the upper tool bar, and enter west Virginia coal mine, you will find thousands of images. Understand that not all coal mines are underground mines- some are open mines, such as high wall, auger mining, mountain top removal, etc. The link below IS of an underground mine, and show miners riding to the working face.

Answer 2

That depends on the formation where the coal is found. Some mining is conducted as underground mining, where multiple tunnels are dug and connected to form a maze like network under ground. While mining is underway, large pillars of undisturbed coal is left to support the mountain above the mines.

Once the mines reaches its limit of the coal that is owned by the operator, a gradual shutdown process occurs. The miners do this by removing the supporting pillars and slowly retreat to the entrance of the mines. This process may take several years and the unsupported mountain will eventually cave into mines behind the retreating miners.

In other areas, coal is closer to the surface, as is mined as a High Wall or Long Wall surface mine. In some cases, an exposed seam of coal in a long wall may be auger mined- a large diameter auger digs horizontally into the coal and pulls it out. There are various forms of surface mining, where overburden (soil and rock) are removed to expose the coal. Entire mountain tops may be removed and all coal seams that are encountered as the mountain is removed is taken. This permits coal seams that may be too narrow to be economically mined by other methods to be extracted.

The type of mining will be driven by the formations, and the cost of mining. If coal is $100 a ton, but it costs $105 a ton to mine... well, that's not going to happen. Coal mining is a major part of the West Virginia economy- do a computer search for West Virginia and Mining- the state has some good information there.