Abstract: To increase the resources recovery rate, repeated mining and the recovery of residual coal resources is used in three-soft mining area of western Henan Province. Through strata control observation and result analysis, the important characteristics of strata behavior were obtained in repeated mining face, which is that working resistance of face support in repeated mining area is greater than in original seam, the periodical weighting is more obvious, the roof weighting step is shorter and roof pressure distribution is non-uniform, this discover provides an basic date to research on repeated mining technique and face support and has an important application value.

Key words: three-soft coal, unstable thick coal seam, repeated mining face, strata control observation, characteristics of strata behavior