Hot dry rock geothermal energy Hot dry rock geothermal energy Hot dry rock (HDR) is an abundant source of geothermal energy available for use. A vast store of thermal energy is contained within hot - but essentially dry - impervious crystalline basement rocks found almost everywhere deep beneath the earth’s surface. A concept for the extraction of useful amounts of geothermal energy from HDR originated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1970, and Laboratory researchers were awarded a U.S. patent covering it. Although often confused with the relatively limited hydrothermal resource already commercialized to a large extent, HDR geothermal energy is very different. Whereas
Underground mining (soft rock) depending on context). Underground mining (soft rock) Underground soft rock mining is a group of underground mining techniques used to extract coal, oil shale, potash and other minerals or geological materials from sedimentary ("soft") rocks. Because deposits in sedimentary rocks are commonly layered and relatively less hard, the mining methods used differ from those used to mine deposits in igneous or metamorphic rocks ("see Underground mining (hard rock)"). Underground mining techniques also differ greatly from those of surface mining. The number sign, or hash sign (#) is often used as shorthand to denote shaft or seam, as in 4# (4