Evolution and Application of Technology in Economic Geology

Exploration and Technology Webinar Series

Series Moderator

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Maureen Moore

Maptek logo

Maureen is a Technical Services Geology Manager at Maptek and manages the training program for the Technical Services Team. She has been a professional geologist and educator for over fourteen years. Prior to joining the Maptek team she worked as a field and exploration geologist for Newmont Mining Corporation, O'Brien & Gere, URS-Diamond/DuPont, Pennsylvania Topographic & Geological Survey (DCNR), and West Chester University. Concurrently, she acted as the education director for a regional STEM education program and is still actively a Space Foundation Teacher Liaison.

Maureen has completed the Citation Program in Applied Geostatsitics, has a Masters of Science in Economic Geology and Ore Deposits, a Bachelors of Science in Geology, a Bachelors of Science Education - Earth & Space Science Education, and is a Pennsylvania certified licensed Science educator. Recently she has started taking courses towards a graduate degree in Adult Education and Distance Education. She is an active member of SME and Geological Society of Nevada, a Society of Economic Geologist Fellow, and a Certified Professional Geologist. Maureen enjoys spending time with family and friends, off-roading, crafting, and rock hounding.

Panelists for Theme 1

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Jake Anderson

Maptek

With 9 years in the mining industry, Jake has both field and technology-based practical experience. He specializes in stratigraphic and stratabound industrial and metalliferous deposits, mine reclamation design, drillhole planning, geologic modeling, and block modeling.

In his current role as a geologist and Customer Success Manager at Maptek North America, Jake ensures clients are using software successfully and leverages his years of experience to advise on modeling and workflow decisions. Prior to this, Jake supported mining and exploration technical staff in navigating technology to conduct their daily workflows and operations. From 2013 to 2017, Jake worked for Kiewit Mining Group assisting with exploration, resource modeling, dewatering, and reclamation design at their Buckskin Mine in Gillette, Wyoming, and their Texas lignite operations.

Jake is a passionate and skilled educator in the industry and enjoys speaking on geology topics such as geologic and resource modeling and exploration planning. He is very active in professional organizations, including SEG and SME where he is a technical contributor on topics such as downhole geophysics to calculate strata densities and modeling rare earth elements in coal deposits. He holds a B.Sc. in Geology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.


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Mary-Anne Hildebrandt

Victoria Gold Corp.

With 16 years in the mining and exploration industry, Mary-Anne brings practical experience in all aspects of economic geology including mine geology, drilling, and sampling. She has extensive experience in geological modelling of ore bodies and stockpiles. Her diverse background in commodities including gold and diamonds is well supported by a deep understanding of Mineral Resource and Reserve reporting.

Mary-Anne has been recognized by her peers with a nomination for the Women in Mining Canada 2020 Trailblazer Award as well as 2 nominations for De Beers safety leadership awards in 2010 and 2020.

She has had the unique experience of working as a geoscientist on an operation from "cradle to grave" and progressed her career during that time to a Qualified Person (QP). Working for De Beers took her to countries such as Botswana and South Africa. She has successfully managed, coached, and mentored diverse teams across Canada, including most recently in the Yukon territory.

Mary-Anne holds a BSc in Geological and Earth Sciences and a BA in Political Studies from Queen's University, where she is currently pursuing a Master of Earth and Energy Resource Leadership degree. Dedicated to developing and defining geoscience best practice, Mary-Anne volunteers with Professional Geoscientists Ontario (PGO) as Chair of the Geology Subcommittee, Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee, and contributing member of the Professional Practice as well as the Sustainability and Climate Committees. In 2021, she was elected as PGO Councillor-at-large for a 3-year term.


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Carlos Vagas

Barrick Gold

Carlos is an exploration geologist with over 14 years of experience in mineral exploration and ore deposit research. He has expertise in Archean and Paleoproterozoic Orogenic gold and Au skarn deposits in West and Central Africa, VMS deposits in the Middle East, and Ag-Pb-Zn (Au) Epithermal, High Sulfidation, Porphyry, and Carlin deposits in North, Central-Caribe, and South America.

He has worked in more than 15 different countries at a variety of scales, ranging from detailed deposit analysis to near mine and regional greenfield analysis, as well as craton-scale studies. Carlos has extensive experience with the integration of structural geology with alteration, lithological, geochemical, and geophysical datasets to define the 3D geometry and geologic control of ore deposits.

He holds a B.Sc. from the Universidad of Costa Rica and a Master’s degree in mining and Mineral Exploration from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology with emphasis on Exploration. Currently he is working in Dominic Republic with Barrick Gold.

Panelists for Theme 2

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Antoine Cate

SRK

Antoine is a structural geology consultant at SRK Toronto. He has completed his B.Sc. and M.Sc in geology applied to mineral resources at Institut Polytechnique LaSalle Beauvais in France. Antoine has completed his Ph.D. on the Lalor Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide deposit under the supervision of Dr. Patrick Mercier-Langevin of the Geological Survey of Canada. He has more than 10 years of both academia and industry field experience in North and South America, Europe, Africa and Australia working on gold and base metal deposits, from greenfield to brownfield exploration. He is also an expert in the applications of data science and machine learning in geosciences, including for prospectivity analysis and automated core logging. Antoine is author or co-author in several peer-reviewed publications, workshops and numerous presentations in economic geology, and in applications of machine-learning in geosciences.

Dr. Antoine Caté is a recipient of the Mountjoy Exchange Award of the Geological Association of Canada. He was awarded the second place at the international Integra Gold Rush challenge as part of the Data Miners team and was involved in the founding of two companies related to the applications of machine learning in the mining industry: Goldspot Discoveries and Geolearn Inc. Antoine’s current work at SRK includes structural field investigation, 3D modelling, and the development of innovative tools applied to structural geology, and mineral exploration.


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Penny Stewart

Petra

Penny is a mining engineer and the founder and CEO of PETRA. Penny worked on mine sites for five years before obtaining her Queensland 1st Class Mine Managers' Certificate of Competency. It was during her time working in the underground and open pit mines of Western Australia that she learnt how geological uncertainty affects our mine planning ability. This experience led her to undertake PhD studies at University of Queensland's JKMRC, where she developed statistical models to predict the mechanical behavior of rock and was awarded the Ian Morley Prize for this work.

In 2015, Penny founded PETRA with the hypothesis that the engineering behavior of rock throughout a mine is best estimated by feeding back 100s of millions of tons of actual mine performance data into engineering models and optimizations. Six years later Petra's AI powered mining software help mining professionals enhance orebody knowledge and optimize the mine value chain.


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Steve Sullivan

Maptek

Steve is a geologist with more than 35 years industry experience in geological modelling and resource management. He has worked across a diverse range of metalliferous and energy commodities throughout Australia and Asia. Steve is Technical Lead for DomainMCF, the Maptek commercial application of machine learning to 3D geological modelling.

Panelists for Theme 3

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Stephanie Mills

Utah Geological Survey

Stephanie is a senior economic geologist with the Utah Geological Survey. Stephanie received her BS Honors from the University of Texas at Austin, and after receiving her PhD from Monash University in Australia she worked several years in global exploration before joining the Survey in 2019. Her research focuses on magmatic-hydrothermal mineral systems and developing field-based exploration techniques. Stephanie is a registered professional geologist and a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists.


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Jesse Clark

Barrick

Jesse has worked various roles through mining, resource, and exploration over the past eight years focused on collaborative approaches to discovering value in complex metallogenic provinces and accurately characterizing resource risk and uncertainty. He received a B.Sc (Hons., first-class) from the University of Adelaide in 2014, and a M.Sc (Economic Geology) within the National Master's Program based at the University of Tasmania CODES in 2019. Jesse began his career with BHP in 2015 within the global graduate program, followed by various roles, including most recently as the Principal Geoscientist for BHP Olympic Dam operations. His accomplishments at Olympic Dam include leading the team that developed the first, fully integrated 3D geological model for the entire Olympic Dam deposit, including a revised structural architecture for the complex orebody. He has contributed to several publications, numerous conferences and IOCG workshops.

Jesse is currently a Mineral Resource Manager with Barrick Gold. His focus is to support Nevada Gold Mines to create long-term value by underpinning business development and operational opportunities with world class geological models. He is a passionate member of the Society of Economic Geologists, serving on several committees, as well as being an active mentor.


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Liz Stock

Barrick

Liz grew up in Cardiff Wales, before leaving to complete an MSci Geology degree at Imperial College London. She was fortunate to work on the Red Dog deposit for her Master's thesis assessing the regional breccias to decipher paleo-hydrothermal fluid flow.

Liz went on to study a PhD at the Mineral Deposit Unit at the University of British Columbia. Her PhD was based at the Red Lake Gold Mines, Ontario with the aim of understanding the evolution of the deposit as well as documenting the alteration zonation for future exploration efforts in the district. Liz worked part-time for Goldcorp’s Red Lake regional exploration team every summer as part of her thesis and later consulting work. She also worked part-time at SGS as a mineralogist in the oil and gas division.

Upon completion of her PhD, Liz joined the Teck exploration group as a geochemist. Here, her passion for geochemistry, problem solving, and thrill of exploration was fostered. Liz was primarily responsible for supporting exploration efforts through geochemical, QA/QC and data management expertise across Teck's North American projects, as well as participating in work on Turkish, Irish, and South American projects.

In August 2017 Liz joined the Barrick North American exploration team. Her current role encompasses geochemical and geological support for grassroots to advance exploration stage projects, implementation of new geochemical methods/tools/data assessment and driving discovery through technical leadership.