Rockbursts and the instability of rock masses

First of all, let me express my sincere gratitude to the Schlumberger Lecture Award Selection Panel and its Chairman, Professor John Hudson, for selecting me as the Schlumberger Lecturer for 1994. It is a great honour and privilege to receive this prestigious award. Thank you very much. I understand that the Selection Panel was influenced, in part, by my lecture notes on Rockbursts and Instability in Mines, now assembled as a book [Linkov, A. M. Dynamic Phenomena in Mines and the Problem of Stability (1994)]. Since these notes are of a somewhat theoretical nature and I am from Russia, I should note that sometimes we Russians have a strong commitment to theories. So it was, for example, with the economic theory of Karl Marx; and so it was with mathematics, mechanics and physics at the St Petersburg State University where I was privileged to study with such outstanding teachers as Professors Lasar Kachanov, Solomon Mikhlin and Valentin Novogilov. I am also grateful to my colleagues Professor Ignatiy Petukhov, Dr Sofia Mogilevskaya and Dr Victor Zubkov in Russia; and to Professors Neville Cook, Steven Crouch, Peter Cundall, Charles Fairhurst, Miklos Salamon and Dr Leonid Germanovich in the U.S.A. for their encouragement, help, support and cooperation.