Letters to the Editor Geological grads better equiped

I have pondered for several years the potential role of mining geologists in rock mechanics/strata control aspects of mining, and agree with the comment in your editorial (N.M., Oct 17/88. “Rock mechanics: can it prevent tragedy?”) that “.. it makes economic sense for geologists to know more about it (the science of rock mechanics).”

One discipline that combines both geology and engineering at the undergraduate and graduate levels at a number of universities across the country is geological engineering. Most programs have changed radically over the last 10 years and are no longer geology with a smattering of engineering. For example, in our own geological engineering program there are courses in such topics as drilling, blasting and machine excavation, environmental protection, mining methods and strata control, and numerical methods.

I am therefore suggesting that graduates of the “new” geological engineering programs, as well as geologists, are well equipped, and I would venture to say, better equipped, to help solve mining rock mechanics problems. B. Stimpson Professor & Head Faculty of Engineering Department of Geological Engineering University of Manitoba