Frontiers in Coal-related Resources—introduction to the special issue

1 Introduction Coal-related resources,as a popular development in recent years,is the focus of research in the field of coalbed methane(CBM),coal measure gases,coal-associated rare earth resources and nonmetallic minerals(Moore,2012;Dai and Finkelman,2018;Qin et al.,2018).Due to its complexity in concentration,occurrence and exploitation,many key issues need to be addressed(Sayed et al.,2017;Bera et al.,2022;Liu et al.,2022).This special issue showcases new developments related to the assessment and analysis of coal-related resources,illustrating basic theory,practical application,and new discoveries.A collection of 26 papers is compiled in this issue,mainly focusing on new advances in coalbed methane,shale gas,coal associated minerals and related to geological evaluation and their performance.