Vitaly Gorshkov, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, visited the “Rudnik” forum held in Yekaterinburg in late October and shared his impressions. The event was devoted to solid mineral mining. Two large pavilions housed stands of mining equipment and technology manufacturers, while thematic presentations ran in parallel in several halls.
The exhibition covered a wide range of solutions, from drilling rigs and mine transport to communication systems, filter meshes, and even ergonomic seats for mining machinery. According to Gorshkov, there were “slightly fewer than none” geophysicists at the forum, but he went with a different goal: to see what the customers of geophysical work are focused on today.
What he remembered most were the talks about Sverdlovsk Oblast mines that have undergone so-called wet mothballing. They covered the history of the sites and their current condition.
Another topic that caught his attention was the reprocessing of old mine dumps. With current technologies and commodity prices, such dumps are considered technogenic deposits, including for the recovery of rare earth metals.
Separately, Gorshkov highlighted a documentary film about Viktor Tarakanovsky, chairman of the Union of Prospectors of Russia. The organizers promised to publish it online.
The forum showed that the industry lives not only by mining but also by rethinking the legacy of the past, from mothballed mines to dumps that are turning into a source of raw materials. And for specialists, such events are a chance to step outside their narrow specialization and see what the industry is breathing.
Source: Vitaly Gorshkov
Image: Vitaly Gorshkov
