Background In China, the coal industry serves as a ballast stone and stabilizer for rapid socio-economic development and national energy security. Despite huge reserves, China’s coal resources are characterized by uneven spatial distribution, diverse coal seams, complex geological structures, and significantly different mining conditions. During coal mining, unclear geological conditions frequently lead to the abandonment of tunneling roadways, poor mining continuity, frequent equipment relocation, and the abrupt onset of concealed geologic hazards. These challenges ultimately result in difficult advancement of mining face, frequent casualties, and considerable economic losses. Geological guarantee represents a crucial foundation and key technology throughout the shaft construction, design, expansion, tunneling, and mining of coal mines, playing a significant role in risk prevention and control, as well as the assurance of high yield and efficiency.

Methods Against the background of national economic construction and coal industry development, this study presents a review of geological guarantee based on its development stage and features, summarizing its technical characteristics and levels acquired under specific historical backgrounds and production modes.

Advances  Geological guarantee germinated shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In the germination stage centered on coal resource exploration, the technology addressed issues related to regional evaluation and prediction of coal resources in China. During the 9th Five-Year Plan, geological guarantee remained in the initial stage focusing on the construction of high-yield and efficient mines, serving the needs of mine design, construction, and tunneling. From the early 21st century, geological guarantee was in the mature stage highlighting safe and efficient coal production. During the mature stage, significant leaps were achieved in detection accuracy, distance, range, and timeliness. Since 2014, geological guarantee has remained in a new development stage underlining intelligent coal mining. This stage is marked by breakthroughs in while-tunneling and while-mining dynamic detection, as well as the research and development (R&D) of professional transparent geological guarantee cloud platforms. During its development history, geological guarantee has played a positive role in coal resource prediction, mine design optimization, tunneling safety assurance, disaster prevention and control, and workforce reduction while improving quality and efficiency.

Prospects Currently, artificial intelligence (AI) is leading a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. It is essential to actively incorporate AI into geological guarantee technology to address bottlenecks concerning technology R&D and equipment manufacturing. Driven by AI, geological guarantee is expected to achieve cross-era technological advancements in real-time, precise advanced perception, the digital base of transparent geology, and precise multi-hazard collaborative management. The development of the coal industry has promoted technological innovation and breakthroughs in geological guarantee, which in turn fosters the safe, efficient, green, and intelligent development of the coal industry. The mutual reinforcement of both has made excellent contributions to China’s national economic development.