German Foundation for Non-Metallic Minerals Mining and Environment Awards Prizes in Berlin

For the tenth time, the Foundation for Non-Metallic Minerals Mining and Environment awarded its prizes to acknowledge scientific research and special achievements in the fields of non-metallic minerals mining and environment protection. A total of 14 entries from eight of Germany’s federal states had been submitted to the Foundation. This year the jury awarded prizes of € 3000 each to three submissions. Two other papers received special recognition. “All five papers are certainly worth presenting to a wider professional public,” stressed Dr Jens Marquardt, Director of the Foundation, in his speech. The prize winners were honoured on 12.03.2013 on the occasion of the twelfth building materials colloquium (Fig.), held this time at Berlin University of Technology.

Ms Maxi Keil was honoured for her dissertation entitled “Technical-economic concept for gold management at a sand and gravel quarry”. She wrote her dissertation at Freiberg University of Mining and Technology. The jury especially praised the good explanation of the theory, which was rounded off with useful information for the practical implementation of the concept. Konstantin Bochmann was also awarded a prize for his research at Freiberg University of Mining and Technology. In his paper on the “Design of a drainage concept at Ruedersdorf Limestone Plant”, he studied for the first time the drainage of an open pit with horizontal wells. The third award was given to Dirk Lüngen representing the Münchener Kies Union for the project “Ecological corporate planning without detrimentally affecting operations based on the example of the ecological operations concept of the Münchener Kies Union”. The practice-oriented step-by-step compilation of information by the landscape architect Uwe Fischer to an informative and clearly set out poster convinced the jury, who saw it as good motivation for realization at other gravel works.

One of the two recognition awards went to the “The digital evaluation process for Saxony’s raw materials – a community project of Saxon State Agency for Environment and Geology and the GEO montan Gesellschaft für angewandte Geologie mbH Freiberg and GICON Grossmann Ingenieur Consult GmbH. Also honoured with a recognition award was the monograph “Non-metallic mineral resources in the Federal Republic Germany” issued by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources and the State Geological Surveys of Germany.