OBJECTIVES

Rock Slope Stability 2009 will provide a forum for open pit mining and civil engineering practitioners, consultants, researchers and suppliers worldwide to exchange views on best practice and state-of-the art of rock slope technologies. Best practice with respect to pit slope investigation, design, implementation and performance monitoring shall be topics to be discussed during the Symposium.

The first in the current series of Rock Slope Stability symposia took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in April 2006. The second was held in Perth, Australia, in September 2007. Chile, as one of the most important mining countries in the world, will have the honour of hosting the third, which will be organized by The Faculty of Engineering of Universidad de los Andes, Santiago, Chile, and CSIRO Exploration & Mining, Brisbane, Australia, with the support of the Large Open Pit Research Project. Conference will have simultaneous translation English to Spanish and vice versa.

Now in its fourth year, the Large Open Pit (LOP) Research Project is an international research and technology transfer project on the stability of rock slopes in open pit mines. It is managed by CSIRO Exploration & Mining and is funded by 12 international mining companies, who are: Anglo American plc; Barrick Gold Corporation; BHP Billiton Innovation Pty Ltd; Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile (Codelco); Compañía Minera Dona Ines de Collahuasi SCM ; DeBeers Group Services (Pty) Ltd; Debswana Diamond Company: Newcrest Mining Ltd; Newmont Australia Ltd; The RioTinto Group; Vale; and Xstrata Queensland Ltd.

Part of the activities to be included within the frame of Rock Slope Stability 2009 is the public launching of the book “Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design” . The book is an outcome of the LOP Research Project. It has taken three years to prepare and is comprised of 14 chapters that follow the life of mine sequence from project development to closure. Each chapter is written by an industry practitioner with specific experience in the topic being described. The purpose of the book is to be a new generation guideline that links innovative mining geomechanics research with best practice, outlining for today's practitioners what works best in different situations (and why), what doesn't work (and why not), and what is the best approach to satisfy best practice in a range of situations.