The three-day event, starting on Sunday, had already attracted 180 delegates, and organisers said yesterday they were looking forward to filling about 200 spots in the coming days.
Dozens of presentations will cover geoscience research, exploration, mining, geotechnical, environmental, legislative, and health and safety topics of particular interest to the resource sector.
"The conference will feature a group of exploration history and mining heritage themed presentations and also presentations that look forward and discuss possible developments in the minerals and coal industries in the next 50 years," the organisers have said.
Presentations during the event include Bathurst Resources, WorkSafe NZ, CRL Energy, GNS Science, Kenex, Niwa, Solid Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, lobby group Straterra and at least five universities from New Zealand and Australia.
The outlook for the future of coal will be of interest, with Solid Energy’s asset sale still under way and Bathurst waiting out the global downturn in coking coal prices.
Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges is scheduled to address the conference on Monday.
Oceana Gold is a principal event sponsor and its general manager, Bernie O’Leary, will make a presentation and Oceana’s Taylor Knight will give an overview of its Correnso underground mine, at Waihi, in Coromandel.
Of interest in Otago is the recently announced work programme of junior Australian exploration company New Age Exploration (NAE), which applied this month for two exploration permits nearRoxburgh and Lawrence.
NAE’s interest centres on recent research by University of Otago geoscientists Dr Doug Mackenzie and Prof Dave Craw, which will be presented at the conference.
Of the 12 post-graduate research papers presented by students, three are from the University of Otago, which in past years often made almost half the presentations.
Alastair King will be looking at the Lot’s Wife gold prospect in East Otago, Gemma Kerr at the formation of arsenic sulphides in West Coast gold mining waste and Fraser Shand will look at the Cascade Creek copper-molybdenum deposit in Westland.
