Kuznetsk Coal Basin

or Kuzbas, one of the largest coal basins in the world; the second largest coal basin in the USSR, after the Donets Coal Basin. Most of the basin is located in Kemerovo Oblast; the rest is part of Novosibirsk Oblast and Altai Krai.

General information. The Kuznetsk Coal Basin is located in the Kuznetsk Basin. The total area of the basin comes to around 70,000 sq km, of which 26,700 sq km are occupied by coalbearing deposits.

The first outcroppings of coal seams were discovered in 1721 by the serf-prospector M. Volkov. The first Bachatskii Mine was built in 1851 near Gur’evsk. Coal mining was begun in the Anzhero-Sudzhensk in 1897. Systematic study of the Kuznetsk Coal Basin began in 1914, with a geological survey under the supervision of L. I. Lutugin. The survey was completed under Soviet power, with the compilation of the first geological map of the basin (1926; scale, 1:500,000) and the publication of a monograph on the geology of the basin by V. I. lavorskii and P. I. Butov (1927). Prospecting the geological research developed more widely in 1930, after the Sixteenth Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) adopted a resolution to develop a new high-capacity coal and metallurgical base (the Urals-Kuznetsk Combine).

Geological survey. Geologically, the Kuznetsk Coal Basin is a major downwarping formed at the end of the Cambrian and filled with Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic formations. The first appearance of coal dates from the Middle Devonian; above this there are noncoal (predominantly marine) deposits as far up as the Visean level of the Carboniferous. The basic coal measures formed beginning with the Namurian (from the Lower Carboniferous to the Jurassic, inclusively), during which the basin turned into an intermontane depression. These coal measures are composed of sandy-argillaceous sediments and numerous coal seams. Above the coal-bearing deposits there are shallow broken deposits of the Upper Cretaceous and Cenozoic.

The outcroppings of coal-bearing series on the surface are arranged almost concentrically, from the more ancient along the periphery to the younger at the center, forming a large synclinorium in the shape of an irregular rectangle stretching from southeast to northwest. The coal-bearing deposits within the synclinorium are deformed to varying degrees. Along the western, northwestern, and southwestern edges of the basin there is a zone of intensive folding within linear, narrow, and, in places, inverted folds. Closer to the center of the basin there is a zone of isolated brachyfold structures. The eastern area is a zone of monoclinal and gentle folding; the general subsidence of the coal-bearing layer is toward the axial portion of the basin.

The coal measures have undergone several periods of tectonic deformation. Toward the end of the Hercynian folding, they were crushed into folds with a northwestern strike. Denudation of the sediments began after the Pfalzian phase. This was followed by the accumulation of deposits of the Maltsevian series (Triassic). The formation of this series was followed by an early Kimmerian phase of folding and a new and more significant denudation of the coal-bearing deposits and of all of the more ancient deposits. The last (late Kimmerian) phase occurred after the accumulation of sediments of the conglomerate suite of the Tarbaganian series (Jurassic). This phase was more intensive than the Pfalzian.

Occurrence of coal. The coal measures of the basin contain about 260 coal seams of varying thickness. These are distributed unevenly in cross section: there are 237 in the Kolchuginian and Balakhonian, 19 in the Tarbaganian, and three in the Barzasian (total maximum thickness, 370 m). The usual thickness of the seams ranges from 1.3 to 3.5 m. These are seams of 9–15 m and even 20 m; in places, swells reach 30 m.

In terms of petrographic composition, the coals in the Balakhonian and Kolchuginian series are basically humic and hard (vitrinite content, 30–60 percent and 60–90 percent, respectively); they are transitional from brown to hard in the Tarbaganian series. The quality varies, but the coals tend to be from among the finer grades. In the deep horizons the coals contain 4–16 percent ash, 5–15 percent moisture, as much as 0.12 percent phosphorus, 4—42 percent volatiles, and 0.4–0.6 percent sulfur. They have a heat of combustion of 7,000–8,600 kilocalories per kg (29.1–36.01 megajoules per kg). The coals lying closer to the surface are characterized by a higher moisture and ash content and a lower sulfur content. The metamorphism of the hard coals declines from the lower stratigraphic horizons to the upper ones. The coals are used in the coke and chemical industries and as power fuel. The total geological reserves (to a depth of 1,800 m) come to 725 billion tons.

In addition to coal, the Kuznetsk Coal Basin and its adjacent mining works hold deposits of iron ore, peat, limestones, refrac-tory clays, building materials, and mineral rocks. Oil and gas shows have been discovered in a number of wells.

Economic geography. Coal constitutes the leading branch of industry of the Kuznetsk Coal Basin. There are 90 mines and open pits, grouped into the Kuzbassugo’, Prokop’evskugol’, luzhkuzbassugol’, and KemerovougoP combines. In 1972 these combines mined 119 million tons of coal—150 times the output of 1913 and 5.6 times that of 1940. Some 42–45 percent of the coal mined in the Kuznetsk Coal Basin is used for coking. Most of the coal (to 47 percent) is consumed in Western Siberia; around 20 percent, in the Urals; and the remainder, in the European part of the USSR, the Kazakh SSR, and elsewhere.

The Kuznetsk Coal Basin is second only to the Donbas in quantity of coal mined in the USSR, and it significantly surpasses the Donbas in mining-engineering and technical terms. The maximum depth of the shaft mines is 500 m (average depth, around 200 m). The average thickness of the seams worked is 2.1 m, but as much as 25 percent of the shaft mining comes from seams thicker than 6.5 m. The major output comes from the mines of the central and southern regions of the basin (Prokop’-evsk-Kiselevsk, Leninsk-Kuznetskii, Belovo, Tom’-Usa). The labor productivity in the Kuznetsk Coal Basin is significantly higher, and the coal costs and proportional expenditures of capital investments per mined ton are lower than in the Donbas. The Kuznetsk Coal Basin has nine active mines of local importance, with a total output in 1972 of 2.8 million tons of power coals.

The hard coal is mined both by the underground method and by the more progressive open-pit and hydraulic methods. The proportional amount of open-pit mining, by weight, is around 30 percent, and hydraulic mining contributes about 5 percent; in these terms the Kuznetsk Coal Basin holds second place in the USSR.

There are three hydraulically worked mines in operation. There is an underground coal gasification station in operation in the Prokops’evsk-Kiselevsk coal region. There are 25 coal washeries. The mines make use of 180 mechanized complexes, 365 cutter loaders, about 200 entry-driving machines, 446 loaders, about 12,000 scraper and belt conveyers, and 1,731 electric locomotives. All of the basic production processes of mining and transporting the coal at the mines have been mechanized. In the open-pit works there are 448 excavators, more than 80 electric locomotives, about 900 dump cars, 300 bulldozers, and hundreds of cranes, drilling rigs, and large-capacity trucks. The modern coal mines in the Kuznetsk Coal Basin are large mechanized enterprises (for example, the V. I. Lenin Mine in Mezhdurechensk and the lubileinoe Mining Administration in Novokuznetsk). These giant mines each produce 10,000 and more tons of coal daily.

Over the long run, coal mining in the Kuznetsk Coal Basin is expected to grow. As of 1971–75, the large Erunak deposit is being developed and large mines, such as Raspad’ Biriulino No. 2, and the Novokolbinskii open pit, are being built.

In addition to the coal industry, th Kuznetsk Coal Basin has industry in metallurgy (the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine and the Western Siberia Plant in Novokuznetsk, the Belovo Zinc Plant, and the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant), chemicals (Kemerovo), and machine building.