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The Caving 2010 Preliminary Programme is now available.

Early bird registration ends 8 March, register now!

Key Dates

Final paper deadline: 8 February 2010

Speaker registration deadline: 1 March 2010

Early bird registration ends: 8 March 2010

ACG Preconditioning Workshop: 19 April 2010

Caving 2010 Symposium: 20-22 April 2010

Second International Symposium on Block and Sublevel Caving

20–22 April 2010, Australia

Initiated by the Australian Centre for Geomechanics, the Universidad of de los Andes, Chile, the University of Toronto, Canada, and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, the ACG looks forward to hosting the Second International Symposium on Block and Sublevel Caving for the first time in Australia. It is intended for this symposium to run every four years, in between the MassMin Symposia (Luleå 2008, Sudbury 2012).

The growing popularity of caving methods around the world is largely due to the very low production cost and the intrinsic safety associated with this mining approach. It is often the only viable mining method for some of the lower grade massive orebodies that are becoming too deep for open pit mining.

Strategically, most medium and large mining companies are operating or planning to operate a caving mine. Codelco's El Teniente mine in Chile and the LKAB Kiruna Mine in Sweden are among the largest and most famous caving operations in the world. Australia’s leading caving operations include Rio Tinto's Northparkes mines, BHP Billiton Nickel West's Perseverance Mine and Newcrest's Telfer and Ridgeway gold mines.

Caving 2010 Keynote Addresses

Dr William Hustrulid was born and raised in Minnesota. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in mineral engineering from the University of Minnesota. His PhD thesis on the percussive drilling of rock was done under the sponsorship of Atlas Copco with much of the research being done at their Central Research Laboratory in Stockholm. He has taught mining engineering courses at the Colorado School of Mines, the University of Utah, and Lulea Technical University amongst others. He currently holds the rank of Professor Emeritus from both the University of Utah and the Colorado School of Mines.

His industrial work experience includes periods at Atlas Copco, Gecamines, Terratek, LKAB, and the Itasca Consulting Group. Bill has written and/or edited numerous technical papers and textbooks mostly related to mining topics. Although he has "retired" several times, he is currently employed as a mining expert at the Spokane Research Laboratory of NIOSH and as manager of Hustrulid Mining Services. His current consulting activities include technical board work for Codelco, Rio Tinto, LKAB and others. Bill is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. He lives with his wife, Claudia, in Spokane, Minnesota.

Bill's Caving 2010 keynote address is entitled, "Some comments regarding development drifting practices with special emphasis on caving application".

Dr Gideon Chitombo of the Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, recently appointed as Professor and Chair of Minerals Industry Engagement, is the technical director of the Mass Mine Technology research project. This followed the International Caving Study formed in conjunction with the industry. The two projects focus on critical reviews of conventional caving design approaches, collation of common caving practice, and more importantly the understanding of the caving fundamentals (caving mechanics, gravity flow, fragmentation) as well as confined blasting as applied to sublevel caving.

Gideon will be giving what he calls "a challenging" keynote address entitled "Cave mining - 16 years after". This follows Dr Laubscher's 1994 "Cave mining - the state of the art" address.