With the removal of the majority of the shallow mineral reserves there has been an increase in the mining depths in the South African mining industry. This has, in turn, changed the industry’s and stakeholders’ perceptions of risk associated with mining-induced instability. In recent years the increased mining depth, particularly in open pits, has led to an increase in pit slope failures, which has highlighted the need for appropriate and effective pit slope management programmes. Such a programme comprises many facets, including mine hazard plans, regular slope inspections, cleaning of interim and final pit faces, blasting practices, histories of failures, pit depressurization, stormwater control and evacuation procedures. However, it is arguably in the field of slope monitoring that the most significant strides have been made in terms of new technologies and best practice in open pit mining geotechnics, with the introduction of technologies such as laser scanners and slope stability radar. This paper seeks to illustrate the operational benefits associated with the implementation of new technologies into open pit mining, using AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Gold Mine in Tanzania as an example. <...>

A number of functional materials based on rare earth oxides have been developed in various fields. Up to 1990, many review articles describing rare earth oxides have been reported and several intensive articles deal the properties e.g. preparation, structure and transformation and have been published early nineteen nineties. In these ten years, much progress has been made in the characterization of rare earth oxides from high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM), as well as in a unique preparation of ultra-fine particles and in the theoretical calculation.

Since fossil vertebrates were first discovered at Porcupine Cave on the rim of South Park, Colorado, in 1981, the site has become the world’s most important source of information about animals that lived in the high elevations of North America in the middle part of the ice ages, between approximately one million and 600,000 years ago. Beginning in 1985, teams of scientists and volunteers from three major research institutions —the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the University of California Museum of Paleontology—spent some 15 field seasons excavating and studying tens of thousands of fossil specimens that have opened a window onto past evolutionary and ecological adjustments. This window into the past allows us to visualize how ongoing global change could affect our living communities. This book reports the results of nearly two decades of research and has been written to appeal to three overlapping audiences

Biological Weathering in the Terrestrial System: An Evolutionary Perspective

Plants as Drivers of Rock Weathering

Microbial Weathering of Minerals and Rocks in Natural Environments

Micro- and Nanoscale Techniques to Explore Bacteria and Fungi Interactions with Silicate Minerals

Modeling Microbial Dynamics and Heterotrophic Soil Respiration: Effect of Climate Change

Critical Zone Biogeochemistry: Linking Structure and Function