English Description (from the introduction) top ↑
How different is the scene today! Today, geoscientists have to warn the public not to fall into the opposite extreme, into carelessness. Today, as before, raw materials are endowments of the earth, they are non-renewable and they are limited. We must not cease in our effort to conserve raw materials, to recycle them and find substitutes, even if the markets today are balanced and prices are low.
In previous symposia the following topics were discussed: The importance of the Geosciences for the Supply of Mineral Raw Materials; The Mineral Resources Potential of the Earth; New Paths to Mineral Exploration; Geo-Resources and Environment.
The subject of the fifth Symposium relates to technological
developments. From the beginning, raw materials and technology have
stimulated each other. Today, we are experiencing breathtaking
developments in information technology and in the search for new
materials. They present new goals and new problems for
geoscientists. This symposium will discuss them.
Internationally recognized experts have offered to contribute to the
symposium. My special thanks are due to all of them.
It is not easy to communicate across barriers. Engineers and
scientists often use different languages, think in different
categories. To be able to understand each other they have to think and
do talk in simple terms. This can be quite difficult.
The participants of this symposium come from many fields of science
and engineering, even from politics. It is my sincere wish that each
one of them will receive stimulating information and new ideas. It may
well be that geologists have to learn that the required new raw
materials cannot be sought in the conservative way, that they are not
required in large quantities, and that more often than not they are
obtained as by-products. Technologies have to be developed to separate
these by-products from the main mineral components of a
deposit. Special quality standards for the new raw materials have to
be complied with. A whole range of new challenges emerges and can be
tackled only in a multidisciplinary approach comprising the combined
actions of geoscientists, engineers and technicians.
I am confident that this symposium will contribute to the advance of
new technologies and will bring geoscientists and engineers closer
together.