Doug Morrison was born in Scotland in 1956 and graduated from Edinburgh University in geology and received a Master’s degree in rock mechanics from University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  He immigrated to Canada in 1981 and has 14 years of operating experience in ground control and rock mechanics in the deep underground mines of the Sudbury Basin, working for both Falconbridge Ltd. and Inco Limited.  Since joining Golder Associates in 1994 in Sudbury Ontario, he has worked on mine design and ground control projects in Canada and the US and has travelled extensively, principally to Australia, South America and Europe.  From 1999 to 2001, he was based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, serving mining clients locally while continuing to travel internationally.  Throughout his career, he has regularly presented papers at the CIM AGM and the Mine Operators Conference, as well as at other mining conferences in North America and internationally.  He is presently based in the Mississauga office of Golder Associates, and since October 2005 has been responsible for the coordination of Golder’s mining personnel globally to meet the needs of the international mining industry.

Holistic and Sustainable Mining Technology

Abstract: n the early 1980s, the Canadian mining industry went through a major transition from using mining methods that were manpower-intensive, using relatively small equipment to create small excavations, to methods that used much larger, more complex and expensive equipment, creating much larger exca-vations. But not all of these changes were positive and many aspects of the old ways of mining have been lost. The most impor-tant change was not technological, it was organizational—the change from holistic to prescriptive processes.

Today, mines are facing new challenges—commodity prices are high and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future—but the demographic challenges are significant, and the Canadian industry will see a dramatic change in the profile of the personnel employed.

This presentation is a slightly humorous look at the major changes the underground mining industry has gone through in the last 25 years. Despite the progress that has been made, the ways mines used to manage people and equipment may still have something to teach us about human nature. Perhaps a slightly different look at the changes we have experienced might help the industry to cope with the very serious challenges that lie ahead.