随着全球生活水平的提高，更多消费者进入了矿物资源市场，使得矿物资源的消耗正在迅速增长。其结果是，在21 世纪为了有效应对矿物资源供应危机，地下采矿持续地向更深的水平推进。然而，深部采矿在一个需要有非常规技术以及有挑战性的环境下进行，为了克服这些挑战和实现可观的经济收益需要重大的创新性解决方案、最佳实践以及实施额外的安全标准。这些挑战包括深部采矿工程常常遇到的灾难性事件：岩爆、瓦斯突出、高的原岩和次生应力、大变形、挤压和流变岩体以及高温。本文回顾了全球深部采矿现状，指出了一些与深部采矿的岩石力学和工程地质相关的技术进展及机遇。在这些技术进展中，基于全自动化的采矿和矿物提取过程的无人工作面和无人矿山已成为21 世纪的重要领域。

Mineral consumption is increasing rapidly as more consumers enter the market for minerals and as the global standard of living increases. As a result, underground mining continues to progress to deeper levels in order to tackle the mineral supply crisis in the 21st century. However, deep mining occurs in a very technical and challenging environment, in which significant innovative solutions and best practice are required and additional safety standards must be implemented in order to overcome the challenges and reap huge economic gains. These challenges include the catastrophic events that are often met in deep mining engineering: rockbursts, gas outbursts, high in situ and redistributed stresses, large deformation, squeezing and creeping rocks, and high temperature. This review paper presents the current global status of deep mining and highlights some of the newest technological achievements and opportunities associated with rock mechanics and geotechnical engineering in deep mining. Of the various technical achievements, unmanned working-faces and unmanned mines based on fully automated mining and mineral extraction processes have become important fields in the 21st century.