Students race ore carts, use hammer and steel chisel at University of Arizona mining games

College students have a lot of different ways to compete against one another, whether in sports or groups like chess or debate teams.

In Tucson this week, some students are even competing to be the best at old mining techniques — like digging in the ground for minerals. More than 200 mining students from around the world are at a competition that has been called “the Olympics of collegiate mining.”

48th Annual Intercollegiate Mining Games Competition is being hosted by the University of Arizona’s student chapter of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration. The competition is taking place Thursday and Friday at UA's San Xavier Underground Mining Laboratory in Sahuarita.

There are seven events, including mucking, gold pan, jackleg, hand steel and survey.

In mucking, competitors will race a heavy ore cart down a track.

In the jackleg event, teams will see who can drill the deepest hole in a concrete block.

And that's not to be confused with hand steel, where teams compete to make the deepest hole in a concrete block with a hammer and steel chisel.

Many of these techniques are considered sort of retro in the mining world.

The first mining games were hosted at the University of Idaho. The games were started as a tribute to 91 miners who were killed in a fire in an Idaho silver mine. The UA team were the first champions.