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Surface Ops department

Surface Ops Track: Site Work, Heavy Equipment and Hauling

The ground game: digging safely, running iron around people, moving loads legally, keeping a site on schedule and knowing what your foreman expects. Written for laborers, operators, drivers and anyone coming in from construction, the military or warehouse work.

Surface Ops covers the site, yard and logistics crews that every launch site, gigafactory and mine build needs.

5 modules · about 135 minutes in all · a quiz after each module · final test: 12 questions, pass with 10 right

Join the crew and start this track About Surface Ops

What's in it

  1. Module 1: Trenches and excavations: reading the cut before you get in

    Trench collapses kill fast.

    About 20 minutes · quiz of 5 questions on this module · sources include OSHA and OSHA 1926.651

  2. Module 2: Running iron around people

    OSHA calls four hazards the Focus Four because they account for most construction deaths: falls, struck-by, caught-in or between, and electrocution.

    About 20 minutes · quiz of 5 questions on this module · sources include OSHA and OSHA 1926.602

  3. Module 3: Moving loads legally

    Hauling is where site work runs into road rules.

    About 20 minutes · quiz of 5 questions on this module · sources include FMCSA and eCFR 49 CFR 393 Subpart I

  4. Module 4: Keeping the site moving

    A site runs on a plan everyone can see.

    About 20 minutes · quiz of 5 questions on this module · sources include BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook and eCFR 30 CFR 56.18002

  5. Module 5: What your supervisor expects

    Your first weeks on a site are a trial, and everyone knows it.

    About 25 minutes · quiz of 5 questions on this module · sources include eCFR 29 CFR 29.5 and eCFR 30 CFR 48.25

The full lessons, quizzes and final test are open to crew members. Joining is free.

A question from module 1

Your crew is laying pipe in a 6-foot trench in clay. There is no box, no shoring and the walls are vertical. The lead hand says it held fine yesterday. What do you do?

  1. A. Go in quickly and get the pipe set, since it held yesterday
  2. B. Stay out, tell the lead hand you will not enter without protection, and ask for the competent person ✓
  3. C. Go in but stay near the ladder
  4. D. Enter only if someone watches from the top

At 5 feet or deeper, a protective system is required unless the trench is in stable rock. Refusing to enter and calling the competent person is the expected move, not insubordination.

What you get

SAMPLEMars Mining Academy

Sample certificate

Your name here

completed the

Mars Mining Certificate in Surface Operations Fundamentals

  • Trenches and excavations: reading the cut before you get in
  • Running iron around people
  • Moving loads legally
  • Keeping the site moving
  • What your supervisor expects

Each real certificate gets an ID and its own page at marsmining.com/academy/verify/, plus an Add to LinkedIn button.

This is a certificate of completion from Mars Mining, not academic credit or a license. It shows you studied the material and passed an unproctored online test.

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