During mining for mineral resources and the erection of subterranean constructions one has to deal with a medium that is extremely complex in composition and has diverse mechanical properties and laws of deformation. To achieve these objectives one is compelled to utilise a large set of technological schemes and types of mine workings. In spite of the vast scale on which mining work and related scientific investigations are carried out, the development of mineral resources is such a complex problem that no unique laws have been defined to date to describe the behaviour of rock massifs which might be disturbed during mining operations or when they interact with engineering structures.

Gold occurs as primary commodity in a wide range of gold deposit types and settings. In the last decade, significant progress has been made in the classification, definition and understanding of the main gold deposit types. Three main clans of deposits are now broadly defined, each including a range of specific deposit types with common characteristics and tectonic settings. The orogenic clan has been introduced to include vein-type deposits formed during crustal shortening of their host greenstone, BIF or clastic sedimentary rock sequences. Deposits of the new reduced intrusion-related clan share an Au-Bi-Te-As metal signature and an association with moderately reduced equigranular post-orogenic granitic intrusions. Oxidized intrusion-related deposits, including porphyry, skarn, and high-sulfidation epithermal deposits, are associated with high-level, oxidized porphyry stocks in magmatic arcs. Other important deposit types include Carlin, low-sulfidation epithermal, Au-rich VMS and Witwatersrand deposits. The key geology features of the ore-forming environments and the key geologic manifestations of the different deposit types form the footprints of ore systems that are targeted in exploration programs. Important progress has been made in our ability to integrate, process, and visualize increasingly complex datasets in 2D GIS and 3D platforms. For gold exploration, important geophysical advances include airborne gravity, routine 3D inversions of potential field data, and 3D modeling of electrical data. Improved satellite-, airborne- and field-based infrared spectroscopy has significantly improved alteration mapping around gold systems, extending the dimensions of the footprints and enhancing vectoring capabilities. Conventional geochemistry remains very important to gold exploration, while promising new techniques are being tested. Selection of the appropriate exploration methods must be dictated by the characteristics of the targeted model, its geologic setting, and the surficial environment. Both greenfield and brownfield exploration contributed to the discovery of major gold deposits (>2.5 moz Au) in the last decade but the discovery rates have declined significantly. Geologists are now better equipped than ever to face this difficult challenge, but geological understanding and quality field work were important discovery factors and must remain the key underpinnings of exploration programs.

Recent years have seen increasing rigour being applied in many industrialised countries to the regulation of industrial emissions and to the quality of water, air, food and soil. This welcome official concern with the quality of the human habitat will, through the regular monitoring of environmental media that it implies, have important consequences for the training of professional environmental scientists. Monitoring agencies will require more analysts familiar with the special obstacles that compositionally diverse environmental materials can put in the path of reliable analysis. Professionals who interpret such analyses, too, though they may not be trained in the the technicalities of geochemical analysis, will need to recognise the limitations of the analytical methods employed and understand the quality control mechanisms upon which the industry depends, if they are to draw objective
and reliable conclusions from their data.

Biogeochemistry is becoming an increasingly popular subject in graduate education. Courses in ecology, geography, biology, chemistry, environmental science, public health, and environmental engineering all have to include biogeochemistry in their syllabuses to a greater or lesser extent. Humanity’s ever growing impact on the Environment, and the consequent local, regional, and global effect demand a profound understanding of the mechanisms underlying the sustainability of the biosphere and its compounds. The ideas of biogeochemistry about the universality of biogeochemical cycles involving the mass exchange of chemical elements between living organisms and the environment in the Earth’s surface appear to be quite productive in this high priority academic and scientific discipline. In biogeochemical cycling the active principles come from biota which global biological and geological activity alter slowly the biosphere’s compartments. On the other hand, the environment causes the living organisms evolve.