Rio Tinto will run the world's first automated long-distance heavy-haul rail network, with a US$518 million investment (Rio Tinto share US$478 million) in driverless trains.

Emissions from Canada's oilsands are unlikely to make a large contribution to global warming compared to the burning of coal, says a leading climate change researcher.

The salaries that high school grads can pull in from mining has at least one Idaho teacher considering a mid-life career change.

As hearings into the Northern Gateway pipeline continue, Enbridge, the company behind the $5.5 billion project to transport oilsands crude 1,170 kilometres from Brudenheim, Alberta to a new marine terminal in Kitimat, says it would consider moving the pipeline terminus to another location further north.

Wild price swings caused by a volatile rupee sapped Indian buying interest in gold in the fourth quarter of 2011, with imports well short of expectations and no pick up expected this year, dropping it behind China for the first time.

As a means of compensating for lost oil revenues following secession of South Sudan, Sudan has exported some $400 million worth of gold already this year.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin say the controversial practice of "hydraulic fracturing," or "fracking", may not be to blame for environmental problems such as water contamination.

Peruvians in the northern region of Cajamarca are not giving up easily in their fight over Newmont Mining's proposed Conga copper-gold mine.

Finning, Caterpillar's largest equipment dealer, reported record revenues for the fourth quarter and full-year 2011 on the back of highest-ever equipment sales in each region.