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.

James Taylor

Structural Geologist, BHP

Session 4: 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.

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.