This standard was developed cooperatively over the last two years by Queensland and New South Wales representatives of coal exploration and mining companies, consulting groups, and software providers, to enable the recording of higher quality and more accurate coal borehole data.
Financial support was provided by ACARP to enable the presentation of a hard copy manual in a series of workshops held in February this year.
The release of CoalLog has provided a standard which many in the coal industry thought would never be produced, lead developer Brett Larkin said.
“Everyone was keen to have a single coal logging standard, so long as it was exactly the same as the system they currently used,” he said.
“Although every company had very similar systems, arbitrary differences led to numerous errors and discrepancies, especially when data was transferred or when contractors moved from one company’s project to another.
“I spend about 40 per cent of my time correcting data before I can even start using it.”
CoalLog incorporates all relevant existing standards for describing geological or geotechnical data for the Australian coal industry.
As logging contractors move from one company to another they will not have to learn another system. An added bonus is that the NSW government will accept digital files in CoalLog format and will not require a translated log or graphic.
A review committee under the leadership of geologist and developer David Green has already started meeting to assess and incorporate proposed modifications.
A proposal has also been submitted to ACARP for a second phase of development which will provide a logging training manual, photographs with descriptions, and standard graphic symbols.
“The consensus achieved in development of CoalLog has made this one of the most satisfying projects I have been involved in over a 30 year career. It has delivered a system which will deliver long lasting data quality and cost benefits,” Green said.
While CoalLog has been developed for the Australian coal industry it is already being used in Mongolia, Canada, and Mozambique, and enquiries have been received from New Zealand and the US.
The digital version is available on a webpage sponsored by AusIMM. Download of the manual, coding dictionaries and logging sheets, as well as test data, is free from the site.
