The Penn-Anthracite Section is a legally constituted unit of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc., encompassing a specific geographical area. Our members are given the opportunity to network with their peers and hear valuable presentations through our activities.
The Pennsylvania-Anthracite Section of SME/AIME announces the establishment of the following mining-related engineering or science scholarship grants:
The American Institute of Mining Engineers was founded in 1871 at a meeting at the Wyoming Valley Hotel on South River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Present at this meeting were a group of 22 mining engineers, mostly from the area of today’s Pennsylvania Anthracite Section of the Society of Mining Engineers – Carbon, Columbia, Dauphin, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Sullivan, and Wyoming Counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania. After the three-day meeting there were 71 members of AIME.
A record of the first meeting is contained in Transactions of AIME Volume I:
Transactions of AIME, Volume I; click for more...(496 pages)
Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Production in 1871 was 15.5 million tons.
In 1911 the Institute had grown to over 4000 members and the first three local chapters were founded – in New York, Boston and Spokane.
On February 17, 1914, the Pennsylvania Anthracite Section became the 10th local chapter of AIME. Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Production in 1914 was 91 million tons. The Local Section was led by Robert Van Arnsdale Norris, a Wilkes-Barre Mining Consultant and expert in Mine Drainage for its first 15 years.
AIME membership in 1972 was 50,000, while Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Production was 6.5 million tons, and during this period, the local Section almost collapsed, with no meetings being held in 19 72, 1973 1974 or 1975.
Due to the efforts of a small group of members including Cy Kranick, Ivor Williams, Charlie Kuebler, Walter Haentjens, Peter Haentjens, Bob Rissinger, Ken Wesner and Charlie Zink, the Section was revived, and the ongoing efforts of Secretaries of the Section, notably Charlie Zink, Don Featherstone, and Joe Martarano, the Section has continued as a vibrant group in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
