This Seminar deals with the origin and mining of different (mineral) resources and the risks connected with the mining and the long term impacts on the environment (especially on soil, surface and ground water). The presentations have to deal with the processes and techniques of mining as well as further processing, the geographical distribution and well known case studies. Rehabilitation procedures may be part of the discussion. Proposal of topics: lignite, shale gas, oil sands, coal, mineral mining (subsurface), copper (open pit), gold, oil, salt, hot water (geothermal) others (like diamonds, coltan, platinum, rare earth?