Abstract: To prospect the geological anomaly real timely overlying strata in ahead of drivage face in coal mine, the paper proposed the underground-surface SWM (seismic while mining) advance detection technique which uses a mining machinary as seismic source, lays reference channels near the seismic source and records the transmitted signal on ground surface. Using a shearer as seismic source, an experiment was carried out in a coal mine. Comparing the data of this experiment with that of collected using an explosive source in a roadway of adjacent workface, the result showed that the P-wave first arrivals in both data were clear and strong, and the recognizability of S-wave arrivals were similar. This showed that using a geophone near a mining machine to record the source signal and a survey line on surface ground to record the transmitted signal can get data similar to an explosive source. This technique can monitor the overlaying strata ahead of drivage face while mining, and it has the potential to realize seismic advance detection at supervision level.