ACARP Project C26023 CoalLog Manual Version 3.0 Borehole Data Standard for the Australian Coal Industry Brett J. Larkin (GeoCheck Pty Ltd) & David R. Green (PRIMED Global Pty Ltd) April 2020 ACARP Project C26023 ACARP Project C26023 CoalLog v3.0 - Borehole Data Standard for the Australian Coal Industry Table of Contents 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 2 2 The History of CoalLog .............................................................................................. 3 2.1 History of Coal Exploration Data Collection ..................................................................... 3 2.2 Development of the Standard ........................................................................................... 4 3 Design Principles ....................................................................................................... 6 4 Data Layout.............................................................................................................. 10 4.1 Header, Geologists, Casing and Cementing Logs ......................................................... 10 4.2 Drilling Logs .................................................................................................................... 11 4.3 Lithology Logs ................................................................................................................ 16 4.4 Sample Dispatch Sheet .................................................................................................. 20 4.5 Water Observation Logs ................................................................................................. 20 4.6 Rock Mass Unit (RMU) and Defects Logs ...................................................................... 22 4.7 Point Load Logs .............................................................................................................. 25 5 Dictionary Descriptions ............................................................................................ 27 6 Coal Quality ............................................................................................................. 98 6.1 Coal Quality Results File Format .................................................................................... 99 6.2 Coal Quality Reflectance Results File Format .............................................................. 105 6.3 Composite Constituent Sample Numbers File Format ................................................. 107 6.4 Clean Coal Composite (CCC) Definitions File Format ................................................. 108 6.5 Quality Test Specifications File Format ........................................................................ 109 7 Data Transfer Format ................................................................................................ 111 7.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 111 7.2 CSV File Format ........................................................................................................... 111 7.3 File Names for Transfer Files ....................................................................................... 112 7.4 CSV File Fields and Header Line ................................................................................. 114 7.5 Transfer of Dictionaries ................................................................................................ 115 7.6 Date, Time and Logical Data ........................................................................................ 115 7.7 Continuation Lines in the Lithology Data ...................................................................... 115 7.8 Multiple Lithologies in a Lithological Unit ...................................................................... 116 7.9 Multiple Records within a Lithology .............................................................................. 117 7.10 Comment Lines ............................................................................................................ 117 7.11 Validation of CoalLog Data Transfer Files .................................................................... 117 7.12 clCertify – CoalLog Certification App ............................................................................ 120 7.13 References ................................................................................................................... 120 8 Las Parameters ...................................................................................................... 121 8.1 CoalLog Las Parameters .............................................................................................. 122 8.2 References ................................................................................................................... 124 9 Standards for Displaying Lithology ......................................................................... 125 9.1 CoalLog Lithology Patterns .......................................................................................... 125 9.2 CoalLog Lithology Colours ........................................................................................... 127 10 Future Developments ............................................................................................. 149 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 150 Appendix A: Useful Web Links .................................................................................... 152 Appendix B: CoalLog Training Manual ........................................................................ 153 Appendix C: CoalLog Modifications ............................................................................. 154 Appendix D: CoalLog Logging Sheets ......................................................................... 155 Appendix E: CoalLog Dictionaries ............................................................................... 157 Appendix F: Lithology Patterns Software Development Tools ..................................... 160 Appendix G: Data Transfer Format Test Data ............................................................. 162 Version 3.0 April 2020 Page 1 of 162 ACARP Project C26023 1 Introduction This Manual describes the CoalLog v3.0 - Borehole Data Standard for the Australian Coal Industry. This Standard enables the recording of consistent and standardised borehole data. It was developed cooperatively by representatives of coal exploration and mining companies, consultants, and software providers, in Queensland and New South Wales. The manual, along with its associated downloadable files, includes the background and rationale for the development of this standard, the principles on which it was developed, and its key elements including code dictionaries, logging sheets and field definitions. The details of the data layout and use of the coding sheets is provided as well as descriptions of the codes. A full description of the field names, sizes, and other details are included to enable a standard database and transfer format protocol to be implemented. Version 3.0 April 2020 Page 2 of 162 ACARP Project C26023 2 The History of CoalLog 2.1 History of Coal Exploration Data Collection Three mining software companies: Mincom, ECS (Minex software) and Maptek (Vulcan software) were established in Australia in the late 1970’s. All three independently developed a system of coding sheets and dictionaries for the collection of coal exploration data. The three systems had a lot in common but also had significant differences. Many of these differences were quite arbitrary and purely the result of a lack of dialogue between the companies. From relatively early in their development, both ECS and Maptek enabled clients to define their own sheet formats and all three allowed clients to modify their dictionary. Even though many of ECS’s and Maptek’s clients had their own formats, the formats of all of the clients of each company were fairly similar. As Mincom probably had about 40% of all the clients including large players such as BHP and Rio Tinto, and all their clients were using the same data format their format, this format became the closest to a de facto standard within the industry. There were numerous drawbacks with these formats: 1) The data collected today differs from that collected forty years ago when these systems were developed. For instance, portion and parish are generally not recorded now, nor are grain roundness, grain description or permeability and yet details such as environmental factors, depths of core runs and water flows are now routinely collected but are not adequately catered for in these systems. 2) Today data is often collected by contractors who regularly move between clients. Often, when moving, they face changes in logging sheet formats and dictionaries. Frequently the same code will even have different meanings in different companies’ systems. For example, SO is soil in some dictionaries and sooty coal in others, KL is core loss in some and kaolinite in others, while silt and siltstone are SL and ST in some and the reverse in others. This is an unnecessary source of data errors. 3) Most of the previous formats and dictionaries were designed by one or two very experienced geologists, however, as no single geologist’s experience covers every possible situation, all these formats and dictionaries have