With world population growing to 10 billion by 2050 and a rapid increase in standards of living, the extraction of Earth's mineral resources to support those growing demands is not sustainable.

The continuing use of these resources -- ranging from lithium, iron, and rare earth elements to copper, uranium, and gold, among many others -- must be carried out in a way that minimizes environmental impacts to ecosystems and impacts to human health while enhancing societal benefits.

More than 20 speakers from the international mineral resources industry, government agencies, and academia will gather at Stanford for this two day symposium to assess:

• Current and future reserves of key minerals, especially critical materials,
• Rates at which mineral resources are being depleted and new resources discovered,
• Environmental impacts caused by mining and use of minerals,
• Needs for research on the origins of mineral deposits, exploration strategies, and ways to mitigate impact,
• Technology advances to extract minerals in a more cost-effective way while minimizing environmental impact, and
• Environmental, economic and social impacts of mining in developing countries.

This symposium is being sponsored by the Stanford University School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, and co-sponsored by the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy, both at Stanford University.