Our People

Expertise

• Practising mining consultant
• Exploitation of coal, lignite and other stratified deposits
• Mining's environmental effect and legacy
• Energy resources within abandoned mines

Experience

Tom Burke, Mining Consultant has prepared technical and economic audits of surface mining developments in both the developed and the developing world.  End users of his services have been national governments, major mining companies, finance houses, banks, stock exchanges, the United Nations and the European Union.  He is familiar with working in association with consultants of other disciplines.

He has had experience at senior levels in all aspects of coal and lignite mining from geological exploration through mine design, the selection of mining machinery and equipment, mine development, mine production, haulage, mineral preparation, marketing, mine abandonment and closure.  An in-depth appreciation of the effects of mining on the natural and built environments together with knowledge of how adverse affects can best be mitigated have been acquired from a lifetime’s involvement, which also includes experience of stratified ironstone, potash and fireclay workings.

To his more conventional mining assignments that continue, Mining Consultant Tom Burke has added the exploitation of the heat energy resource to be found in old flooded mine workings.

Other Activities

Publications

• “Opencast coal mining on Scottish hill sites”, jointly with DKG Bowen, papers presented at Cursos de Verano, Gijon, Spain, 1980.
• “Commercial appraisal of opencast coal resources in the National Coal Board”, paper presented at the 2nd International Surface Mining and Quarrying Symposium, Cardiff, 1983.
• “Rehabilitation and revegetation” and “Cost, maintenance and utilisation of restored agricultural land”, papers presented at Jornados sobre Mineria a Cielo Abierto, Oviedo, Spain, 1985.
• “The significance of mining method to site investigations in areas of old abandoned mine workings”, paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on Construction in Mining Areas, Edinburgh, 1988.
• “The use in Scotland of flooded coal mines as a source of geothermal energy”, paper presented at the International Scientific Conference on Geothermal Energy in Underground Mines, Ustron, Poland, 2001.

Professional Qualifications and Registrations

• BSc with distinction in Civil Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
• MQB Mine Surveyor’s Certificate
• Chartered Engineer
• Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining
• Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers