Since the reform and opening up, especially since the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Central Committee, with the deepening of China's scientific and technological system reform, exploration engineering technology has undergone profound changes from teaching, scientific research to production and construction. In this way, the subject field has been expanded and the service field has been wider. Compared with other branches of geological work, it first penetrates into all aspects of economic construction. With the development of prospecting engineering, the service field has expanded from simply serving geological survey and prospecting to serving the whole earth science development, national economic construction, national strategic security, improving people's living environment and many other fields. First of all, in order to adapt to the new situation, the exploration engineering department of geological colleges has undergone major structural adjustment, from the original majors of drilling, pit exploration (tunneling) and mechanical exploration to the majors of survey engineering, construction engineering, mechanical design and manufacturing, environmental protection, safety engineering, equipment management and maintenance, and engineering construction management. The expansion of specialty can also be seen from the change of the names of prospecting engineering departments in various geological colleges. The exploration engineering department of Changchun Institute of Geology was merged into the current School of Architecture and Engineering of Jilin University, the exploration engineering department of Chengdu Institute of Geology was merged into the current Department of Environment and Civil Engineering of Chengdu University of Technology, the exploration engineering department of China Geo University (Wuhan) was merged into the current School of Exploration Architecture and Environmental Engineering, and the exploration machinery specialty was merged into the current Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. The Department of Prospecting Engineering of China Geo University (Beijing) was merged into the current College of Engineering and Technology. Secondly, scientific research institutes have also adjusted their business structure to meet the needs of the market economy, changing from simply undertaking vertical projects to integrating science, industry and trade, undertaking both vertical scientific research tasks facing the needs of the country and horizontal projects facing the needs of the broad market; Engaged in technical consultation, technical services, geological exploration and drilling, engineering investigation, engineering construction, design, processing, production and sales of drilling machinery and equipment. Thirdly, the original exploration engineering team actively explored the service field under the situation that the national mandatory drilling workload was greatly reduced, and completed a major shift from simply completing the national mandatory drilling task to serving the industrial exploration market and engaging in diversified operations. Fourthly, the Geological Society of China Prospecting Engineering Committee and the editorial department of Prospecting Engineering magazine also actively adapted to the above changes, and made their own contributions to the development of prospecting engineering disciplines. The 10th, 11th and 12th symposium on survey engineering held by the professional committee of survey engineering in 1999, 200 1 and 2003 were respectively entitled "Geotechnical drilling and excavation engineering facing the 2 1 century", "Application and development of geotechnical drilling and excavation engineering in resources, environment and engineering construction" and ". In order to fully demonstrate the multi-field and multi-directional application of drilling technology in social development and economic construction, the editorial department of Survey Engineering published Selected Works of Geotechnical Drilling and Excavation Engineering in the form of Survey Engineering Supplement in 2002, and organized a technical exchange meeting of geotechnical drilling and excavation engineering. In a word, prospecting engineering covers four kinds of scientific and technological work: drilling, tunneling, prospecting machinery and safety technology. After more than 50 years of development after the founding of New China, its application fields have been continuously broadened. In addition to the traditional geological survey, it has been widely used in the basic engineering of industrial buildings, roads and bridges, urban construction and other construction projects, as well as geological disaster prevention, geothermal exploration and development, slope support, trenchless laying of underground pipelines, underground space development, drilling and mining and other engineering fields. It is not only an important part of the exploration technical support system of the geological team "field army", but also an indispensable technical method to serve the national economic construction.