Ross started off at Melbourne University in 1971 doing a degree in geology. After a brief detour into exploration geology and a few years of marine geology, he started research into spoil pile failures in the Bowen Basin and moved to Brisbane where he also picked up a PhD in Civil Engineering.

He joined ACIRL in 1988 and moved to Wollongong where he ran the Bellambi testing laboratory and eventually was appointed manager of the geotechnical engineering group. He joined Coffey Partners in 1992 and was mining manager until 1998 when he started his own company. He does not have mining qualifications, and perhaps that is part of the reason why he is often seen putting alternative views on why things happen and what should be done.

Ross was particularly coy telling more about his patented self-drilling bolts, besides revealing a small snippet below.

ILN:What is your earliest mining memory?

Ross: Family visits to the goldfields at Maldon in Victoria. The ancestors made lemonade and cordial in the town. I have since found out that one of my great great-uncles was a mine manager - but it looks like the mine lasted less than 12 months. I may be carrying on the safer family tradition of providing services rather than actually being a miner!

ILN: What made you choose mining as a career?

Ross: I fell into it. I did geology during the last resources boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s and by graduation there was nothing available. There was funding for marine science so I started crawling over mudflats in Western Port Bay. Cliff Mallett of CSIRO somehow saw a connection with the Tertiary clays of the Bowen Basin, and the die was cast. I did a few years of slope stability work and then into underground coal.

ILN: When was your first underground visit?

Ross: Cooranbong Colliery in about 1980. They had entered the Fassifern Seam from the Great Northern Seam where a fault had brought the seams close. There were high water inflows from the fault and they were trying to cablebolt the infamous low-strength clayey Awaba Tuff. It wasn’t successful. I have had to revisit the Awaba Tuff numerous times since then - it is not an easy material but the mines in the Newcastle area are making some progress with managing it, at least from a floor heave and subsidence perspective.

ILN: Who, or what, has most influenced your mining career?

Ross: I have been particularly fortunate with mentors over my career. Working at CSIRO, and particularly over at Soils Division in Adelaide, I learnt the importance of challenging assumptions and poor logic.

After that, the civil-trained engineers at Coffey Partners showed me what can be done if you integrate engineering geology with analytical engineering – there really can be an alternative to empirical mine design. I owe much to engineers such as Harry Poulos, the late John Booker, Phillip Pells and Tim Sullivan.

ILN: What do you consider your best mining achievement?

Ross: The industry gives consultants the chance to work on a wide range of exciting projects. The work I have recently done with Matthew Fellows at Mandalong, and supported by the whole of Centennial Coal, has required the application of almost all of the skills developed over the last 30 years. It has been pleasing to see it pass through the business hoops and the increasingly demanding regulatory process.

From a research perspective, I enjoy challenging the many paradigms that we have in the industry. Credibility takes a hammering when it is suggested that most, but certainly not all, roof falls in 2005 are due to low horizontal stress, but the message is important and the reactions are enlightening. Horizontal stresses in Australian mines are usually high and they must be considered in the roof support design. But if you have a collapse of supported roof, you have a failure of the design process, and perhaps that failure can be traced to possibility that the horizontal stresses are not high enough – there is evidence for this in coal roofs, in tailgates, and in multiple seam mining.

ILN: What do you see as being the greatest mining development during your career?

Ross: It has to be the increasing recognition of the value of geotechnical engineers. I think Keith Ross was one of the first to create such a position when he put the longwall into Cook in the early 1990s. Now every mine has one. And geotechnical engineering has advanced rapidly since – we have moved from documenting hindsight to anticipating hazards and responding with recommendations for better mine layouts and better ground support.

There are still problems – the main one being that there are not enough adequately experienced people to fill the positions. As a result we are putting too much responsibility onto young engineers and geologists who may not have the competencies or support structures that were around the mine managers that previously fulfilled this role.

ILN: Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?

Ross: To see automated roof drilling. In 2005 we have workmen very close to the rib, manually handling resin capsules, balancing them on bolts that weigh too much, and asking for the quality installation of 100-200 bolts per shift. It is the most important job in the mine and it is unsustainable. There are a number of self-drilling bolts in the market, and in 2003 I lodged patents on a completely different design. If I am right, and I do have a vested interest here, this ambition will be a reality very soon.

ILN: What was your scariest time in a coal mine?

Ross: Ultraclose mining at Gibson’s. The client was mining the 1.2m thick Balgownie Seam only 5m-6m below the already mined Bulli Seam. The Balgownie has an excellent sandstone top – about 0.5m thick and very strong – but it would fall with almost no warning. Some of the falls were basically chimney collapses all the way to the Bulli. It brought home the truism about never putting a rock mass into tension.

ILN: What is your worst memory of coal mining?

Ross: Like so many have said before - inspection of the ground after a fatality. After the event, the geomechanics of falls of ground are always so depressingly simple. We need to work out how to get more geotechnical knowledge and insight down to the face crews.

ILN: Do you think that the day of the fully automated remotely operated face is near?

Ross: No, the inherent uncertainty of the geotechnical environment will limit the ability to do this.

ILN: What major improvements would you like to see on longwall operations?

Ross: Gateroads that are developed fast and safe. The focus of research efforts should be automated remotely controlled roadway development (not the longwall) with the workforce removed from the dust, noise, gas, and rock falls off the face and ribs. The geotechnical uncertainty will still be present but it will be easier to mange because the span is only 5m.