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How is water used to transport coal in hydraulic mining in the Kuznetsk Basin?

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coal mining Schematic diagram of an underground coal mine, showing surface facilities, access shafts, and room-and-pillar and longwall mining methods.

In the Kuznetsk Basin of Siberia, hydraulic mining is utilized to extract coal from steeply pitching, multiseam deposits. In this process, water serves two primary roles in transportation:

Working faces to common point: After high-pressure water jets fragment the coal from the seam, the water is used to flush the broken coal from the mined areas into open channels, which carry the material to a common collection point.1
Common point to surface: From the collection point, the coal is moved to the surface using high-pressure hydraulic transportation systems.1

This method is particularly effective in the region due to the geological conditions of the deposits, which allow the water to efficiently transport the coal through the necessary stages of extraction.1