Permeable geologic faults in the coal seam can cause intermittent production problems or unexpected amounts of groundwater outburst from the underlying aquifers. With the acknowledgment of the basic mechanism for groundwater outbursts, the groundwater outburst along the fault zones in coal mines are numerically investigated using RFPA, a numerical code based on FEM. The fracture initiation, propagation, and coalescence in the stressed strata and the seepage field evolution in the stress field are represented visually during the whole process of groundwater outburst. The numerically obtained damage evolution shows that the floor strata could be classified as three zones, i.e. mining induced fracture zone, intact zone and fault reactivation zone, in which the intact zone is the key part for resisting groundwater outburst and directly determines the effective thickness of water-resisting rock layer. With understanding of the evolution of stress field and seepage flow in floor strata, the groundwater outburst pathway is calibrated and the transformation of floor rock mass from water-resisting strata to outburst pathway is clearly illuminated. Moreover, it is shown that geometrical configuration, including inclination angle of faults and seam drop along faults, have an important influence on groundwater outburst. Finally, based on geological, hydrogeology survey and numerical results, the mechanism analysis of groundwater outburst in an engineering case is studied, which can provide significantly meaningful guides for the investigation on mechanism and prevention of groundwater outburst induced by faults in practice. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.