Abstract
The mining professions are diverse, and can be grouped into exploration and evaluation professions, exploitation professions and post-mining professions. The only common factor at all stages is the ore itself, defined as the geological formation bearing the useful substance, which justifies the intervention of a geologist throughout the mining project. Classically organized in a sequential manner, as a succession of quasi-independent phases piloted by specialists, mining projects should now be seen as integrated operations, taking into account all stages from the outset, right through to human management of the cessation of operations, site reclamation and long-term monitoring.
The geologist's mastery of the scales of time and space, and his ability to integrate observations and data of all kinds into synthetic reasoning, make him particularly well-suited to take an overall view of a mining project, and thus to manage it from an integrated perspective.
This new role for mining geologists calls for major changes in their training, which needs to be more generalist and open to the social sciences.
