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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 the
resistivity was also used to subsurface geology and coal exploration as used to
investigate the coal seam (Singh, Singh, Lokhande, & Prakash, 2004); electrical
resistivity measurements to map shallow coal mine workings (Johnson, 2003); fault
detection (Zhu, et al., 2009; and Torgashov, Anderson, & Kovin, 2010); detect
bedrock contamination (Aristodemou & Betts, 2000; Yoon et al., 2003; Zeid et al.,
2004; Naudet et al., 2004), 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 resistivity imaging is widely used in engineering site (Loke, Chambers, Rucker,
Kuras, & Wilkinson, 2013) includes engineering problem in landfill (Reynolds &
Taylor, 1996; Bernstone & Dahlin, 1997); detection of pollution (Daily et al., 1998;
Goes & Meekes, 2004), in-mine imaging during working (Schoor, 2005; Schoor &
Binley, 2010); and 2D electrical resistivity tomography to engineering projects
(Arjwech et al., 2013; 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 where obviously exposed along the
highway 2216 by road cut outcrop between Ban Huai Sanam Sai and Ban Pa-Ruak,
Khok Mon Sub-district, Nam Nao District, Phetchabun Province, Northern Thailand.
In this research, the samples were also collected from project area to measure the
physical properties which related to seismic reflection and electrical resistivity
tomography including of ultrasonic wave velocity and electrical resistivity (Telford et
al., 1990; Lucius, Langer, & Ellefsen, 2007; and Loke, 2016) in the laboratory that
aim to support in data interpretations.

References
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Zhu, T., Feng, R., Hao, J.-q., Zhou, J.-g., Wang, H.-l., & Wang, S.-q. (2009). The
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