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Mine Explosion in West Virginia Possibly Linked to Lightning
 

 
Subject - Mine Explosion in West Virginia Possibly Linked to Lightning

January 12, 2006 

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Mine Explosion in West Virginia Possibly Linked to Lightning

 

There have been several news media reports suggesting that lightning may have been a factor in the recent mine explosion in West Virginia. One of these is from the Charleston Gazette, which reported that three lightning strikes hit within five miles of the Sago Mine within a half-hour of Monday morning’s deadly explosion, according to a federal government contractor that monitors thunderstorms.

Two of the strikes, including one that was four to 10 times stronger than average, hit within 1 1/2 miles of the center of the Upshur County mine, according to the contractor.

At the same time, company officials and accident investigators confirmed that they believe the explosion occurred in a sealed area of the operation.

The President of International Coal Group, the company that owns the mine, said rescue crews found that concrete seals on the abandoned mine area had been blown apart by the blast.

He said that a “very substantial explosive force” blew the seals in toward the working area of the mine.

Revelations about the blast location and the lightning strikes revived early reports that lightning could have triggered the worst West Virginia mining disaster in nearly 40 years.

Terry Farley, administrator for the state Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training, said that previous underground explosions tied to lightning have occurred in areas that were mined out and sealed.

Click here for the full story,

Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that lightning has initiated methane explosions in abandoned and sealed areas of underground coal mines. The following is a link to a study attempts to answer the question: “Can lightning cause potential differences capable of igniting methane-and-air mixtures at overburden depths at which underground coal mining occurs?”

 

http://www.mikeholt.com/files/PDF/61_02.pdf  

 

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Comments
  • Certainly there is a strong possibility that lightning ignited methane in a sealed area of the Sago mine, though I suspect that no conclusive evidence of this will be found. Data from the lightning antenna system will be exceptionally valuable here.

    As for the IEEE paper shown here, I believe that the authors came to one erroneous conclusion. Their "Scenario 1" has lightning striking the earth directly above a methane-containing area of a coal mine, and there are no conductors like pipes between the mine and the surface.

    For this case, they made the assumption, quite common in work of this sort, that lightning current to uniform soil spreads out in a hemispherical fashion, dissipating evenly into the earth. On this basis they have concluded that in "Scenario 1" even a very strong lightning strike is unlikely to generate an arc at the depth of the mine.

    Newer work has shown that the 'hemispherical dissipation' model is not supported by laboratory observations, and that lightning in the earth travels along paths very much like those it takes in the air. Had they taken this into account, I believe that the authors would have come to the opposite conclusion in their "Scenario 1:" in short, if lightning were to strike the earth directly above a methane-containing cavity in a coal mine, an arc could indeed be generated, with a resulting explosion.

    But the paper was valuable in its intent and the computing methods that it describes. It tells us that a mine explosion can indeed be set off by lightning.

    The reference to work by Berger in a text by Golde is interesting. Berger was a Swiss tunneling engineer who investigated the premature detonation of explosive charges in the tunnels beneath the Alps. He was able to correlate these detonations with thunderstorms on the mountain thousands of feet above the tunnel.

    The solution in the case of the tunnels was to devise less-sensitive blasting detonators. But in the case of the Sago mine a solution doesn't seem to be in hand. We can't stop lightning from striking hills in coal country, nor can we prevent methane from outgassing from the walls of a coal mine. It may be that all areas of any working mine will have to be ventilated, whether they are being worked or not.


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  • Sure-very feasible considering that methane is highly explosive. As a counter-measure, it is possible to place lightning protection "towers" on the surface of the earth above mines, but this idea needs development. Further, should we now wonder about lightning exploding methane released from the sea floor under ships & planes in the "Bermuda Triangle", thus accounting for at least some of the losses?

    Jim Stroke, pe
    Reply to this comment

  • Hi Mike,

    I looked this over with a lot interest as I have been following the story line a bit. I worked in the Coal Mining industry for 11 years in Illinois. I left the industry at the end of the eighties when thing were looking really bad for coal with high sulfer content.

    Anyway, I think that this is a real tragedy and I feel a lot of sadness for the families of the folks who were killed as a result of this mine disaster.

    While I can believe that the ignition source may have been lighting, I think many other things were involved that certainly complicated things.

    Aparently the mine was cited previously several times for failure to have proper pre-shift examinations. This is really important because the area of the old seals should be checked during those examinations. Further low barometric pressure could have contributed to methane being liberated at the seal area (trapped methane behind the seals could have been at a higher atmospheric pressure).

    I also read of several citations for accumulations of coal dust. This is one area that often is a problem. If the sealed and adjacent areas were not "back dusted" to keep the accumulations of dust "diluted" with inert rock dust, the potential to propogate the explosion to a greater area exits. If the proper back dusting has been done, the explosion would have been contained more to the ignition area.

    Several other factors can be noted as well, but I don't want to make too many assumptions until the MSHA investigation is complete and all of the details are known...

    God Bless the miners and thier families...

    Mike

    Mike Tribout
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  • Please unsubscribe. (second request!)


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  • If lightning was to blame for the awful accident in West Virginia. Lightning doesn't behave nor has it ever, behaved in the same predictable way. Lightning as an act of nature, can do what-ever it wants to do! reguardless of mans attempts to prevent it! I would like to hear your responces.

    Keith McNeill
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