NEWS 2006

Posted January 17, 2006

Event January 17, 2006

Geotechnical Considerations in Oilsands Tailings and Tailings Retention Dams

Ed McRoberts, AMEC

This presentation was one of the Keynote Presentations made at the recent October 2005 Canadian Dam Association annual conference held in Calgary The presentation is in a power-point format and provides an overview of a range of issues in the design and performance of oilsands tailings dams primarily from the dam safety perspective.

About the speaker: Ed McRoberts is a 1967 Graduate from the University of Alberta, and furthered his studies with a MSc. from Imperial College in 1968, and subsequently with a PhD from the University of Alberta in 1973. He served in the Canadian Army for almost 10 years, leaving the Royal Canadian Engineers with the rank of Captain in 1971. He has been with AMEC Earth and Environmental, A Division of AMEC Americas, and predecessor companies since 1973. As a consulting engineer he has primarily been active in Western Canada and the Canadian Arctic, but has worked on assignments in Latin American, China, and Russia. Permafrost has been an interest since 1960 when he worked as a high-school summer student along the Alaska Highway, and he is still active on current permafrost work in the Mackenzie Delta and down the Mackenzie River as well as on diamond mines. He then began working on oilsands projects with the late Dean RM [Bob] Hardy in 1978, and since that time has worked on many aspects of the Fort McMurray open pit mines both on mine related, as well as tailings projects. He also consults on pipeline studies and projects, infrastructure development, heavy civil construction, and risk assessments.

Location: University of Alberta room 2-090 NREF building
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Date: Tuesday January 17, 2006
Cost: No charge