Abstract: Based on the brief analysis the evolution of "coal geology", the main progress of discipline in basic theoretical research, geological guarantee technology, coal and rock detection during the 13th five-year Plan period is reviewed emphatically, meanwhile the main problems faced and the development direction in the 14th five-year plan period and even a longer period of time are pointed out. It is considered that coal geology should around the development goals of coal industry of "providing sufficient green coal" and "reducing geological disasters in coal mine", taking the key geological theories and technical bottlenecks in green coal exploration, precise intelligent mining and clean and efficient utilization as breakthroughs in the future, the research work should focus on:① Symbiosis law, collaborative exploration technology and accurate evaluation method of development geological conditions of coal measures mineral resources; ② Development of intelligent geophysical prospecting instrument and intelligent drilling equipment; ③ Innovative experiment to detect coal seam fault attributes by pre-stack seismic inversion technology, joint exploration technology of channel wave seismic, channel wave radar detection technology, high density electrical exploration technology; ④ Multi-mode stereo detection and fine interpretation technology of in-borehole, between-borehole, roadway-borehole and between roadway; ⑤ Multi-parameter synthetic imaging technology for coal/rock interface recognition in working face; ⑥ Evolution mechanism of coal mine dynamic geological disaster under coupling superposition effect of mining stress, micro seismic monitoring and dynamic early warning by apparent resistivity method; ⑦ Depth fusion and dynamic geological modeling of multi-source heterogeneous geological and geographic information.