event
Wednesday 26 Mar 2014: Inaugural Lecture - mining into the next century: environmental advances, opportunities and challenges
Professor Bernd Lottermoser - Chair in Environmental Geochemistry, Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), University of Exeter, Penryn Campus
The Exchange Lecture Theatre, Penryn Campus (and via video-conference Harrison LT 004, Streatham) 17:15-19:00
This talk will take the audience around the world to a series of mine sites, illustrating the diversity of environmental issues associated with mining. The talk will showcase the advances in knowledge, the gaps in understanding, and the challenges ahead.
Since the first scientific observations on mining environments over 400 years ago, environmental scientists have gained some phenomenal knowledge on mine sites and related environmental protection issues (the advances in knowledge). Yet today, we continue to be faced with numerous challenges, including the recurring failure of mine waste repositories and the dispersal of contaminants from mines sites into the environment (the gaps in understanding). More than ever, environmental scientists have important contributions to make as they provide the data necessary for rational decision-making in critical areas such as mineral resource development, environmental protection, waste management and remediation, and rehabilitation. The rehabilitation of mine sites and secure disposal of mine wastes require a new precision in the total description of mine sites and an understanding of whether our current rehabilitation practices are sustainable in the term (the challenges ahead). There is reason for optimism that the required progress is possible. Such optimism is based on the phenomenal advances in our ability to observe and describe mining environments. Our efforts could ensure that the 21st century goes down in history as that of 'green technologies'.
BERND LOTTERMOSER is Professor Environmental Geochemistry at the Environmental Sustainability Institute (ESI), University of Exeter, Penryn Campus. He has research interests in mine wastes and the rehabilitation of mined lands. Bernd graduated with a Diploma of Science and a PhD from the University of Newcastle, Australia, in 1990. In his varied career, he has worked in the mining industry and also in research and academic institutions at Australian and German universities. Most recently, he was Professor at James Cook University and the University of Tasmania (Australia).
His work has been recognised by a German Humboldt Research Fellowship, an Australian Endeavour Executive Award, and the Michael Daly Award for Excellence in Science Communication by the Australian Government. Bernd has authored over 200 publications and technical reports, as well as a geological guidebook on northern Australia and an acclaimed textbook on mine wastes published by Springer. The textbook has been published in its third edition and is used widely around the world, including for legal cases presented in the Supreme Court of the United States.
