Eight kinds of typical coal samples were chosen for studying the influence of coal characteristics on laserinduced plasmas. Element analysis and industry analysis were carried out for every sample. Experimental study on the interaction between laser and different coal samples was completed, and factors affecting laser plasma were analyzed, such as coal moisture and coal dust. The experiment result indicates that the coal samples with different coalification degrees have different plasma timeresolved spectral characteristics, all of them tend to rise at the beginning of plasma formation (＜1μs), then with the decay of plasmas emission, they tend to decrease in about 1μs, while secondary ionization occurs in highly coalificated coals after 2μs. The plasma temperature differs from one kind to another, the higher the coalification degree is, the higher the plasma temperature will be.