The National Technology Transfer Center at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia will hold its third annual symposium July 20-22 at the Sheraton Hotel.

The agenda is still being finalized, the center's Web site said, but is likely to focus on "bounces" and "bumps," violent releases of pressure in underground mines that are blamed for a pair of wall implosions that killed nine miners in August at Crandall Canyon.

Six miners were entombed Aug. 6 in the Emery County mine by an implosion equivalent to a magnitude 3.9 earthquake. Ten days later, three would-be rescuers were killed and six others were injured when the mine's walls blew in a second time.

Wheeling Jesuit University began holding the symposiums after the 2006 Sago mine disaster in West Virginia.

A key figure in putting them together has been Davitt McAteer, who was head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) under former President Clinton and now is the university's vice president for sponsored programs.

Co-sponsors of the Utah symposium are MSHA, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the United Mine Workers of America union, the Utah Mining Association and the Utah Labor Commission.

Additional information is available at http://www.nttc.edu/minesafety.

- Mike Gorrell