Remotely sensed multispectral Landsat ETM+images were used to analyze the spatial pattern ofsurface soil organic matter across the coal mining area.Through the correlation analysis between organicmatter contents and ETM+ reflectance variations

wave bands sensitive to organic matter were selected

which were used to establish a prediction model of surface soil organic matter.It was shown that the surfacesoil organic matter contents in study area strongly negatively correlated with the reflectance values of ETM+5and ETM+7(R=-0.585and-0.543

p<0.001).The regression model were developed with the reciprocal of the log-transformed reflectance of ETM+3and the reciprocal of the reflectance of ETM+5(R2=0.616 2

p<0.001)

which predicted the spatial pattern of surface soil organic matter with acceptable accuracy(R2=0.616 2

RMSE=0.89).The area of 10～15g/kg organic matter contents accounted for 50.44%of the totalarea of study site.Surface soil organic matter decreased with the increasing subsidence slope of mining

andthe disturbing effect imposed by the mining activities is a carbon losing effect.