Welcome Message

It gives us great pleasure to welcome you to RockEng09 — 3rd Canada-US Rock Mechanics Symposium & 20th Canadian Rock Mechanics Symposium. First held in 1962, the Canadian Rock Mechanics Symposium series was re-launched with the 1st Canada-U.S. Rock Mechanics Symposium, held in Vancouver in 2007. The Vancouver meeting, with over 200 papers and attracted an international audience of 450 delegates, has made significant contributions towards raising awareness on the importance of rock mechanics and rock engineering for the mining industry worldwide. RockEng09 will try to improve the already high quality standards and be the perfect setting to generate and communicate solutions to today’s rock engineering problems, with particular emphasis to the Canadian mining industry.

RockEng09 brings together nationally and internationally recognized experts from industry, government and academia to discuss the advances made in rock mechanics and rock engineering for mining, civil and petroleum applications. The RockEng09 runs over 2 and a half days, and it is complemented by six workshops and short courses offered prior to and after the conference. Those workshops and short courses, tailored for a broad and diverse audience, target specific problems in rock engineering and provide an additional learning opportunity.

RockEng09 is organized as a unique, immersive learning experience. The symposium will expose graduate and undergraduate students, young and senior industry engineers, academics and government representatives to the latest rock engineering challenges and solutions. We encourage you to share in the symposium deliberations and hope that you will take advantage of the numerous opportunities to discuss the various aspects of rock engineering with your peers.

We would like to thank the keynote speakers and authors for their exceptional contributions, and express our gratitude to CIM National Office staff for their hard work in preparing the symposium, and our appreciation to our sponsoring organizations.

I hope you will find RockEng09 meaningful and rewarding, and also find time to take in the beautiful sights and enjoy your stay in Toronto.

                                                                 Giovanni Grasselli                                               Mark Diederichs
                                                                 Chair, RockEng09                                               Co-Chair, RockEng09