Initiated by the Australian Centre for Geomechanics, the Universidad of de los Andes, Chile and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, the ACG looks forward to hosting the Second International Symposium on Block and Sublevel Caving for the first time in Australia. It is intended to run this seminar every four years, in between the MassMin Symposia (Lulea 2008, Sudbury 2012).

The growing popularity of caving methods around the world is largely due to the very low production cost and the intrinsic safety associated with this mining approach. It is often the only viable mining method for some of the lower grade massive orebodies that are becoming too deep for open pit mining.

Strategically, most medium and large mining companies are operating or planning to operate a caving mine. Codelco El Teniente mines in Chile and the LKAB Kiruna mine in Sweden are amongst the largest and most famous caving operations in the world. Australia’s leading caving operations include Rio Tinto Northparkes mines, BHP Billiton Nickel West Perseverance mine and Newcrest's Telfer and Ridgeway gold mines.