The role of natural gas in meeting the world energy demand has been increasing because of its abundance, versatility, and clean burning nature. As a result, new gas exploration, field development, and production activities are under way. This is especially true in places where natural gas was (until recently) labeled as “stranded.” Because a significant portion of natural gas reserves worldwide are located across bodies of water, gas transportation becomes an issue. We are dealing with many unique issues and facing many challenges in the entire “food chain” (upstream to midstream and downstream) of natural gas engineering.

Soils are aggregates of mineral particles; and together with air and/or water in the void spaces, they form three-phase systems. A large portion of the earth’s surface is covered by soils, and they are widely used as construction and foundation materials. Soil mechanics is the branch of engineering that deals with the engineering properties of soils and their behavior under stress.

This book is divided into 11 chapters: “Soil Aggregate, Plasticity, and Classification,” “Stresses and Strains: Elastic Equilibrium,” “Stresses and Displacement in a Soil Mass: Two-Dimensional Problems,” “Stresses and Displacement in a Soil Mass: Three-Dimensional Problems,” “Pore Water Pressure due to Undrained Loading,” “Permeability,” “Seepage,” “Consolidation,” “Shear Strength of Soil,” “Elastic Settlement of Shallow Foundations,” and “Consolidation Settlement of Shallow Foundations.” This chapter is a brief overview of some soil properties and their classification.

It is assumed that the reader has been previously exposed to a basic soil mechanics course.

It is a privilege to introduce “Advances in Applied Strategic Mine Planning”, a collection of technical papers addressing core aspects of the sustainable, responsible and optimal development and utilization of Earth’s mineral resources. In a world of uncertain markets, mismatches between demand and reserve base growth (supply), emerging technologies, and new technical challenges and solutions, this book aims to support knowledge dissemination and mobilization of new concerns, concepts, methods and technologies.

The Symposium of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG) was held at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, during the period 5–7 March 2019. Computer applications of geomechanics have been gaining much popularity from the early days of the International Conference on Numerical Methods in Geomechanics at Vicksburg in 1972, Blacksburg in 1976 and Innsbruck, Austria, in 1988. It was in that very context the IACMAG was established and it has been growing ever since with various stakeholders contributing significantly from different nations across the world. IACMAG aims at fostering multidisciplinary research and ideas pertaining to geomechanics with particular emphasis on integrating both the practical and the fundamental aspects. The field of geomechanics has evolved with time, and in this regard, IACMAG takes into account the need for judicious simplification of fundamental aspects of geomechanics with a proper amalgamation of theory and experimentation in order that they find their use in practical problems and challenges faced in the industry today. <...>