A world breakthrough in extracting uranium from hyper saline water - previously not possible with conventional technology - has been announced in South Australia by uranium developer, UraniumSA.  Addressing the first day in Adelaide of the Paydirt 2011 Uranium Conference, earlier this qweek, UraniumSA’s Managing Director, Russel Bluck, said the breakthrough had been achieved after collaborative metallurgical research with international and Australian suppliers of the special chemicals used to help extract uranium.

Ausenco has been awarded a $15 million operations and maintenance service contract for the Tonkolili iron ore project in Sierra Leone. The Optimise phase contract involves the provision of operations and maintenance services to two onsite mobile crushing and screening modules for phase 1A of the Iron Ore Project. The contract commences immediately and runs until July 2012, providing an additional boost to Program Management’s growing recurring revenue base.

South Africa's National Union of Mineworks said on Wednesday that 4,200 workers at DRDGold's(DRDJ.J: Quote) Blyvoor mine would down tools for a day on Thursday to mourn eight miners who died in a bus accident last week.

Goldcorp (G.TO: Quote), Canada's No.2 gold miner, plans to slow down the tempo on deal-making and refocus on developing its large pipeline of projects in the Americas, its CEO said on Wednesday. "M&A is not a high priority for us - focusing on delivering these new projects is our priority now," Goldcorp Chief Executive Chuck Jeannes said at the Reuters Global Mining & Steel Summit in Toronto.

Endeavour Silver Corp.(TSX:EDR)(NYSE Amex:EXK)(DBFrankfurt:EJD) announced today record earnings, cash-flows and revenues for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2010, […]

Four short courses in rock mechanics and engineering geology will be held in Vienna, Austria from June 4-10, 2011. The themes of these four courses are:

"Block Theory & Applications for Surficial and Underground Rock Excavations",
"Rock fracture Geometry characterization and network modeling in 3-D including validations",
"Rock Slope Stability Analyses" and
"Measurement and Quantification of Joint Roughness, Normal Deformation, Peak Shear Strength, Aperture and Fluid Flow through Single Joints"

The deadline for registration is 30 April 2011.

This seminar, at K.U. Leuven, Belgium on March 25, 2011 is organised on the initiative of the research groups "Applied Geology and Mineralogy" and "Metallurgy and Materials engineering" (K.U. Leuven) and of McKinsey & Company.

The annual meeting of the European Federation of Geologists will be held in May 2011 at Budapest and is accompanied by a workshop on May 19, 2011 on the subject of education in the area of geology. Both oral and poster presentations concerning any educational level are expected. The main achievements of the Euro-Ages project (www.euro-ages.eu) will also be presented during the workshop. Furthermore, a fieldtrip to the Balaton Lake and the Bakony-Balaton Geopark will be proposed on 20 May. The area of the catastrophic red sludge spill will also be visited. For more information please contact the coordinator Eva Hartai at foldshe@uni-miskolc.hu.

The Geological Society of London is delighted to again host the Shell London Lecture Series throughout 2011. These monthly public lectures are all held at the Geological Society's Piccadilly apartments in Burlington House.