Petroleum is not as easy to find as it used to be. Most of the accessible sedimentary basins in the world have been explored and a large proportion of the more obvious petroleum targets have been drilled. The more risky and costly exploration becomes, the more important it is to develop new discoveries as efficiently as possible and to extract a greater proportion of the petroleum in place from existing fields.

Instrumentation for analytical chemistry gives rise to many abbreviations, some forming “acronyms.” These are often more encountered than the terms they abbreviate, and they appear extensively in the text. A reader new to the field may become lost or disoriented in this thicket of initials. To aid the student in reading the text, the abbreviation/acronym index below translates these and indicates the chapter where they are best defined or characterized. These acronyms are frequently compounded, as in UV/VIS (ultraviolet/visible) or LC-CI-TOFMS (interfaced liquid chromatograph to time-of-flight mass spectrometer operating in chemical ionization mode). The components of such compounded abbreviations are listed individually in the index, but not all the possible combinations. All acronyms are abbreviations, but the reverse is not true. For example, CLIPS, DART, DRIFTS and COSY are acronyms because they form words or are pronounced as words; GFAAS, APCI, and FTIR are abbreviations. <...>

The document is not intended to be prescriptive. It provides guidelines, good practices, case studies and a range of tools that can be utilised in formulating wellconsidered decisions when planning and executing closure. It uses a risk and opportunity-based process to guide the practitioner through the iterative process of planning for final and progressive closure in a considered manner, as well as tactics for considering sudden or temporary closure.

A balanced closure approach fully incorporated into mine planning activities will lead to better outcomes across a range of considerations, including health, safety, social, environmental, legal, governance and human resources <...>

The crust of the Earth is made up of rocks and soils, the latter produced by the weathering of rocks. Therefore, rocks and soils contain the same chemical elements, and their mineral composition is also similar. In addition, soils contain organic matter.
Rocks are defined as incoherent, naturally formed substances, mostly composed of minerals. They can be classified as igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic, depending on their origin.