The maximum vitrinite reflectance of coal is an important parameter to estimate coal rank and distinguish coal quality, which has important application in methane exploration and production, coal mining, chemical and metallurgical industry. Sampling in the field and measuring in lab is the most conventional method to get coal rank and its vitrinite reflectance. In this paper, the relationships between maximum vitrinite reflectance with seismic properties and elastic parameters were introduced through reflectance and ultrasonic measurement in the lab on six different metamorphic kinds of coals, including maximum vitrinite reflectance, volatile matter percent, traveling time of pressure wave and shear wave. Through analyzing these testing data, it can be concluded that there is a fine correlation between the maximum vitrinite reflectance and seismic properties, especially the density and P-wave velocity. And it can be deduced that it will be possible to predict coal rank with seismic data.

Publication name	CHINESE JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICS-CHINESE EDITION  Volume: 56   Issue: 6   Pages: 2116-2122  Published: JUN 2013
Author(s)	Wang Yun; Zhang Yu-Gui; Xu Xiao-Kai
Corresponding author	WANG Yun  yunwang@mail.iggcas.ac.cn   Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geochem, Guiyang 550002, Peoples R China.

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