SAEMC is an annual collaborative event that brings together both the exploration and mining industries in South Australia.
Speakers
2024 Welcoming speeches (TBA)
Nicole Galloway Warland
Chair – SAEMC Organising Committee, Australian Institute of Geoscientists
Welcome
Nicole is a geologist with over 30 years’ experience in the mining and exploration industry in Australia, Eastern Europe and the America’s. Her experience spans from exploration through project evaluation to open cut and underground mining; with a commodity focus in gold, copper-gold, base metals and uranium.
Nicole is also a Councillor of the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC).
Cliffy Wilson
Kuma Kaaru
Welcome to Country
Dr Bronwyn Camac
Director, Geological Survey of South Australia (GSSA) –
Department for Energy and Mining
SA Exploration & Mining Review
Bronwyn has over 30 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry as both a geologist and in management. She has worked across the sector starting out with Comalco Exploration (now part of Rio Tinto), Wiltshire Geological Services, Origin Energy, Beach Energy, Santos Ltd, and later as a consultant for InGauge Energy. Her experience includes precompetitive digital log data creation and management, operations geology, conventional and unconventional oil and gas exploration and development, and government and stakeholder engagement. Bronwyn is the current Federal President of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA).
Bronwyn gained her PhD in Engineering Science in 2010, which focussed on using numerical modelling methods to predict the occurrence of naturally fractured shale rock to apply to seal risk; and maintains interest in this area having supervised various post-graduate projects and application of the techniques in unconventional gas resources.
She has now turned her attention to the minerals industry and has taken a position with the Geological Survey of SA as Director. This exciting opportunity allows her to work with a great team of experienced and highly skilled geoscientists and data engineers to deliver high quality precompetitive data sets and industry advice across the mineral exploration sector in South Australia, with a specific focus on delivering the Critical Minerals Project and Strategy for South Australia.
2024 Session Speakers
Ben Williams
Senior Project Geologist, Alligator Energy
Session 1: Big Lake Uranium – A potential new frontier for sedimentary-hosted uranium mineralisation, Lake Eyre Basin, Northern South Australia
Ben is a geoscientist with over 20 years’ experience in a range of exploration environments, including in-mine, near-mine, and Greenfields. He has worked across Australia, Asia, and the Southwest Pacific with a focus on sedimentology, basin evolution, 3D modelling, lithostratigraphic/chronostratigraphic correlation, geophysical interpretation applied to regional geology and the structural architecture of onshore energy systems. Ben is currently a Senior Exploration Geologist with Alligator Energy working on the Big Lake Uranium Project.
Peter Reid
CEO – Petratherm
Session 1: The Muckanippie Suite – unravelling its enormous Titanium-Vanadium Potential
Peter Reid is the founder and CEO of Petratherm Limited which was spun out from Minotaur Resources in 2004. With over 30 years experience in mineral and geothermal exploration he was part of the Prominent Hill discovery team.
Anna Mayo
Exploration Manager – Sinosteel SA
Session 1: Modern Exploration for Copper Cobalt in the Historic Dome Rock Mine Area, Olary Province, South Australia
Anna is currently leading Sinosteel’s South Australian exploration team in their efforts to generate new exploration targets and locate major orebodies within the company’s five tenements in the under-explored Curnamona region of South Australia. In the last 4 years the team has increased the list of potential commodities from magnetite iron ore and uranium to also include copper, cobalt, gold, base metals, REEs, PGEs, and molybdenum.
In 2021 Sinosteel was granted funding for Anna’s ADI project design to apply innovative biogeochemistry techniques across three prospects including land within a conservation park and private reserve. The project investigated the effectiveness of the geochemistry technique to lower impact, increase efficiency, and decrease costs of exploration in arid lands. Results of the study, combined with recently trialled electromagnetic geophysical techniques led to precise target generation and successful diamond drill targeting in 2023 and 2024.
Alan Oertel
Exploration Geologist – Barton Gold
Session 1: TBA
Alan is a geologist and geophysicist with 8 years experience in mineral exploration in Australia.
Alan joined Barton Gold in 2022, working on both exploration targeting and resource definition at the Tarcoola and Tunkillia projects.
Previously, Alan worked as the Projects Manager for Fender Geophysics and as a Research Fellow with the CSIRO, working on a wide range of precious and base metals exploration projects across Australia.
He has coordinated multiple-rig exploration drilling programs, soil sampling surveys, and geophysical surveys using electrical, magnetic, and gravity methods.
Alan is a graduate of Adelaide University (BSc Geology & Geophysics Honours) and a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG)
Dr Karol Czarnota
Principle Science Advisor, Geoscience Australia
Session 2: The landmark Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity initiative – accelerating discovery and development
Karol is the Principal Science Advisor for minerals, energy and groundwater at Geoscience Australia focused on shaping strategic science direction. He has over 20 years of experience in undertaking and leading precompetitive geoscience programs focused on understanding Australia’s geology and its resource potential.
Robert Blythman
Exploration Manager, Hamlin Gully
Session 2: A scalable Zambian Style sediment hosted Copper discovery south of the Pernatty Ridge
Robert has over 16 years’ experience as an exploration geologist, focused on South Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory. He has both mining and exploration experience in orogenic style gold projects and his experience covers a range of commodities including gold, copper, uranium and rare earths.
Dr Chris Giles
Technical Director, Havilah Resources
Session 2: South Australia’s Copperbelt
Chris is an internationally experienced exploration geologist having been directly involved in exploration programs resulting in the discovery of several operating gold mines in various parts of the world, including Indonesia, Tanzania, and the Tanami and the Eastern Goldfields regions of Australia. Chris was a founding member of Havilah Resources Limited and has played a key role in the strategic accumulation of the Group’s mineral tenement holding in the Curnamona Province region of northeastern South Australia. As the
Technical Director for Havilah Resources Limited, Chris has been responsible for ground selection and overseeing exploration programs contributing to the delineation of 8 new mineral resources within this tenement area, resulting in Havilah’s present JORC Mineral Resource inventory. Chris is an Executive Director and
continues to provide technical guidance within the business. Chris is a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists and is a resident of Adelaide.
Anthony Reid
Head of Geology, Fleet Space Technologies
Session 2: A geologist’s guide to subsurface imaging with ambient noise tomography
Anthony is a geoscientist with over 20 years experience across a range of geological methods, including structural geology, geochronology, geochemistry and geophysics applied to regional geology and mineral exploration.
Rupert Verco
CEO, Cobra Resources
Session 3: Developing the economic basis for Insitu Recovery of Ionic Rare Earths
Rupert is a mining specialist with over 17 years’ experience in Australia and internationally. His key areas of focus include resource definition, reserve optimisation, mine planning, and mine operations. He has managed operations through all phases of the mining cycle on projects that cover a range of commodities including gold, copper, uranium, tin, and iron ore. Rupert is a fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and holds a First Class Honours in Geology.
James Taylor
Structural Geologist, BHP
Session 3: The Oak Dam IOCG Deposit, Olympic Province, South Australia: Unravelling the structural evolution of the Oak Dam Deposit through integration of local and district-scale interpretations
James currently leads the structural geology program at BHPs Oak Dam exploration project. He has delivered significant progress in the understanding of primary structural controls on mineralisation as well as the post-mineral dismemberment of the Oak Dam orebody, culminating in the delivery of the first multi-scale comprehensive 3D-structural model of Oak Dam.
Prior to this he supported BHP’s Olympic Dam operation in mine and resource geology and a variety of roles across multiple BHP West Australian Iron Ore assets, specialising in fully-integrated geological modelling. He is passionate about converting high-quality geological observations, geochemistry and geophysics into accurate and useful 3D-models to support brownfields exploration and resource extraction.
Jonathon Trewartha
CEO, Lincoln Minerals
Session 3: Aiming to be the first new graphite mine in Australia
Jonathon is a mining engineer and developer with experience in exploration, operations, technical, and regulatory approvals, study and project management and corporate via senior positions in Australia and overseas. He holds a WA First Class Mine Manager’s Certificate of Competency.
Chris Anderson
Exploration Consultant, White Tiger
Session 3: Three IO’s to go … Do you want CG with those?
Chris Anderson graduated from Adelaide University in 1975 and has a long career in mineral exploration geophysics. He has particularly focused on magnetic and gravity signatures for IOCG style deposits, primarily in South Australia but also the Cloncurry district. His career highlights have included working with teams at Placer Pacific leading to discovery of the Osborne mine (Qld) and the Kalkaroo deposit in SA. Chris’ geophysical advice to RMG Services (Rudy Gomez) also contributed to the discovery of Carrapateena.
Michael Schwarz
Managing Director, iTech Minerals Ltd
Session 3: iTech’s Eyre Peninsula Graphite Project: The importance of good geology and metallurgy in producing battery anode material
iTech acquired the graphite assets of Archer Materials in 2021 and listed on the ASX later that year. While Archer had done an excellent job of developing high quality graphite assets there were still a few hurdles to producing a product suitable for the battery anode material markets. A basic graphite concentrate had been achieved but a highly purified spherical graphite (PSG) had not yet been developed from the current resources. iTech set about proving up the metallurgical processes to produce high quality PSG and add additional graphite resources with excellent geological and metallurgical properties to the project.
Caitlin Rowett
Technical Services Manager, Hillgrove Resources
Session 4: Kanmantoo: A Productive Year
Caitlin is the Technical Services Manager and Chief Geologist at Hillgrove Resources, where she has worked for the last 5 years on the development and now the operation of the Kanmantoo Underground Mine. Caitlin has worked around South Australia in both Copper and Gold structurally controlled deposits.
Kathy Ehrig
Principal Geometallurgist, BHP
Session 4: Olympic Dam Geology – new thoughts about the deposit
Dr Kathy Ehrig is recognised internationally as a leader in geometallurgy, establishing Olympic Dam’s geometallurgy program 2006. She completed her Bachelor of Science in geology at California State University, Fresno in 1984 and earned a PhD in geology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991.