Technology vision 2050 for sustainable mining

Mining is, was and shall continue to be the cornerstone of human civilization. Tracing the evolutionary milestones in mining technology the paper attempts to provide a technology vision to the year 2050 for sustainability of global mining industry. Even if forecasting the technological changes is at best an uncertain speculative exercise, the broad configurations of technological changes in surface and underground mining and the underpinnings by ICT are examined and the focus of technology for sustainable development discussed and reviewed.