Undergraduate Courses

The availability and use of nonrenewable resources such as hydrocarbons, coal, metals, stone, and industrial minerals has shaped the development of human societies from the Stone Age to the present, and will continue to affect future humanity. This course explores the uneven natural distribution and varying abundance of nonrenewable resources in the world; how humans have extracted and used them over time; and how nonrenewable resource extraction and use have affected the development of world civilizations. Major themes of this course include resource exhaustion, technological substitution, the geopolitics of resources, and unintended social and environmental side effects of nonrenewable resource extraction and use.

An introduction to electric circuits in preparation for the FE exam, and the application of electric power systems to mining. The course reviews physical principles applicable to electrical circuits, basic circuit laws and their application to simple DC and AC circuits, including ideal transformers. Three phase circuits and their analysis in simple cases and the electrical characteristics of typical AC and DC motors are studied.  This material is then extended to typical mining operations. Particular attention is focused on the relationship between production rates and power usage and associated costs; electrical safety; and common power system terminology with which mining engineers should be conversant. 

Introductory course covering the fundamental processes for sustainable resource development. Students will learn the science, engineering, and policies to locate an ore deposit, plan surface and underground mines, operate mines and processing facilities, reclaim mine sites, and work with communities. Students will develop mine plans based on data and operating parameters.

A foundation in mineralogy and petrology in an engineering context. The engineering context means that we will place a heavy emphasis on understanding how minerals form, how they are identified, where economically important minerals are found, their uses, how to identify major rock types and understand their basic engineering behavior.

The objective of this course is to provide students the forty (40) hour Mine Safety and Health Administration's required safety training for new underground miners. The course will be taught in accordance with the MSHA approved training plan for the University of Arizona's San Xavier underground mine. This course includes training blocks in the statutory rights of miners and their representatives, self-rescuer and respiratory devices, entering and leaving the mine including sign-in/sign-out and tag-in/tag-out procedures, transportation, communications, mine maps, escape ways, emergency evacuation, barricading, roof and ground control, ventilation plans, hazard recognition, electrical hazards, mine gases, health and industrial hygiene issues, first aid and other required subjects.

This course will provide students the training necessary for the safe operation of complex mining machinery. Students will be trained to correctly and safely operate a mine hoist, diesel air compressor, ventilation fans, Cannon single boom drill jumbo, 3-yard Wagner Load-Haul-Dump (LHD), EIMCO 922 LHD, forklift, backhoe, jackleg drill, overshot mucker and slusher.

This pro-seminar provides a more advanced opportunity for undergraduate students to research and exchange information on technical topics in mineral resource engineering. The course will feature industry speakers presenting current challenges or technology innovations in the broad area of mineral resources. Students will further develop their skills in technical writing, project design, and apply their knowledge from general education courses to challenges in the global development of resources. Students will develop basic project management skills in anticipation of their senior design project.

The course emphasizes the processes of designing, financing, justifying, implementing, operating, and maintaining large-scale earth moving systems. Both fixed and mobile equipment is considered. The course is taught through a combination of lectures, case studies, field trips, practical design projects, industrial interaction and student centered learning. The course focuses on applications in mining, civil, and industrial engineering.

Physical and chemical unit operations used to separate and recover the economic minerals and metals from their ores. The modern scientific and engineering background for the operations are presented as well as economic aspects. Includes field trips to major mining operations in Tucson.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to a practical knowledge of programming, specifically, developing scripts to automate data analysis and mine planning tasks. Emphasis is placed on working in the Windows environment. Topics include scripting (CMD, Powershell, Perl, Python), cloud tools (storage, collaboration, CRM, ERP, IAAS), Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), application development on the Windows platform in Matlab and Python, application development on the Android and iOS platforms, social media data mining, spatial and time series data analysis, database creation and manipulation, and web page development. The course provides hands-on experience with practical examples drawn from tasks commonly performed in the mining industry. The course is "lab based", that is, a short presentation followed by hands-on computing exercises on laptops for the remainder of the class period. Homework assignments are designed to develop a working knowledge of a wide range of computing tools.

This course is for students who wish to learn and engage in modern sustainable development practices with respect to engineering projects that have three areas of impact: economic, environmental and societal. The course will provide background for an understanding of the complexities and inter-relations of sustainable development issues. The focus will be on the minerals development industry, and the impacts in industrialized and developing nations, communities and the environment.

Understand and apply concepts and problem-solving methods for the design of underground facilities, and operation of underground mines for ores, evaporites, and coal. Topics will include design and layout of excavations, including adits, shafts and slopes, stopes, undercuts and vehicular roadways; mining methods for various geological conditions, sequence of operations (cyclic and continuous), basic design of mine services and equipment selection including ventilation, material-handling, hoisting, electric distribution and dewatering. Safety considerations will be paramount. At the conclusion of the course, participants will be able to select a mining method based on geologic conditions, and perform mine layout, equipment selection and services determination for a target underground production rate.

The course is to deliver the fundamentals of surface chemistry of flotation in mineral processing. It covers the concepts and principles of the thermodynamics (wetting and adsorption) at the interface, the definition and measurement of surface force in flotation, the DLVO theory and colloid stability, the methods and techniques for surface analysis, and finally the chemistry and mechanism of the chemicals (collector, frother and modifier) applied in flotation.

Principles and practices of mine environmental management and reclamation; pre-mining assessment. Design of water management systems (contaminant removal; settling ponds, groundwater protection); recontouring and revegetation; air quality management; noise and seismic mitigation. Maintaining permits; closure and bond release and ultimate land use. Best management practices.

Geopositioning techniques as applied in the mining industry. Topics cover Global Positioning System (GPS), Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Modern Mapping and Scanning Instruments, Geographical Information System (GIS). The materials covered support concepts and topics discussed in other mining courses by allowing the students to collect, process and analyze digital data and use the information to design ventilation system, rock blasting, underground support system, mining sequences, monitor subsidence and slope movements, and simplify the reclamation process. The course is comprised of a lecture period where concepts related to each of the topics listed above will be discussed, and a hands-on portion, which provides the students the opportunity to operate a GPS, motorized total station, and LIDAR scanner in order to acquire data and analyze the collected information using advanced processing software.

Geomechanical aspects of underground excavation in rock. Empirical and mechanistic stability evaluation and design.

This course will provide a basic understanding of fundamental and practical aspects of solution mining.

This course will provide the student with a basic understanding of fundamental and practical aspects of hydrometallurgy processes used to extract and recover mineral and metal values. Unit processes where aqueous solutions play a major role will be examined in detail. The course will focus on the basic processes of leaching, solution concentration and purification, and metal recovery.

The course is to deliver the fundamental microbiology and its application for metal extraction and sulfide oxidation. It covers general biooxidation and bioleaching of sulfide minerals and metal extractions principles and laboratory methods. It includes the mechanism of bioleaching and biooxidation, the different strains of microorganisms, and metallurgical testing methods. The course also provide the key parameters to design a batch reactor, a column testwork, and industrial heap practice. Case study of different operation will also be discussed.

The purpose of this course is to introduce mining engineering students to the principles, applications, analysis, and design of subsurface ventilation systems. Topics covered include: thermodynamics properties of air, ventilation planning, design, survey, and network analysis, fan types, impeller theory, fan laws, and ventilation (fan) economics, mine heat, gases and dust, governing regulations and environmental consideration. Computer applications, laboratory work and intensive field trip further enhance the understanding of the fundamental concepts.

Introduction to the principles of occupational and environmental health, with emphasis on industrial hygiene aspects of recognition, evaluation, and control of environmental and industrial health hazards.

Individual or small group research under the guidance of faculty.

Students work in teams to solve substantive real-world design problems in their academic discipline. The class is normally taken over two semesters, and involves teaming, ethics, innovative experiment or prototype design and construction, testing, evaluation, and optimization. Final designs are presented to a panel of professional engineers for judging. The final designs are documented in writing including project scheduling, management, and budgets. Students are to enroll in 1 unit MAX fall semester AND 2 units MINIMUM the following spring semester for 3 units total.