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SHORT COURSES

SHORT COURSES: Scheduled for Sunday, November 3, 2019, and Monday, November 4, 2019.  The courses are open to the public and will provide valuable information to anyone involved with or interested in the minerals industry.  

MSHA REFRESHER COURSES: Surface and underground mining refresher courses are scheduled for Friday and Saturday, November 9 and 10, respectively, at the Downtown Marriott Hotel.  All courses are open to the public. To register for the MSHA Refresher Courses click here.

SHORT COURSE #1:
GEOLOGY OF PORPHYRY CU-MO-AU DEPOSITS

Short Course #1 Description:
 

This will be a 2-day short course. 

• Day 1 will cover ore-forming magmas, including compositions, sources, crustal modification, oxidation, volatile and metal contents, and hydrothermal processes, including fluid compositions and mineralizing fluids in porphyry systems, fluid flow and structural geology of porphyry deposits, with case studies from Chile and North America (including Alaska) and rock samples.   
• Day 2 will cover vein types and relative ages, vein selvages and wall rock alteration, with elemental maps and phase diagrams, rock samples and plotting exercises; igneous and mineral chemistry, and exploration methods, including hydrothermal vectoring using lithogeochemistry and SWIR.

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Short Course #1 Geology of Porphyry Cu-Mo-Au Deposits Instructors:

John Dilles, Ph.D. - Oregon State University

John Dilles was born in California, and earned BS and MS degrees in geology from Caltech (1975, 1976), and a Ph.D. in geology from Stanford University (1984).  In the 1980s he worked as an exploration geologist in the western USA for Hunt, Ware & Proffett and other companies, and operated of small gold mines with his brother Peter.  He joined the faculty of the Oregon State University in 1986, where he is currently Professor of Geology in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.  He advises graduate students and teaches courses in mineralogy, petrology-geochemistry, field geology, and minerals deposits.  His research has been conducted in the USA, South American, and Canadian Cordillera, and focuses on the geology of porphyry copper deposits, magmatic processes that generate metal and sulfur-bearing hydrothermal fluids, field-based structural geology, and isotopic tracers and geochronology.  He is a Fellow, Silver Medalist (2016), and Thayer Lindsay Lecturer (2018) of the Society of Economic Geologists; Fellow of the Geological Society of America; and is past-chair of the Minerals and Energy Section of Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, where he has advocated for federal support of US universities.

John Proffett, Ph.D. - Consulting geologist

John Proffett received B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in geology at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked for The Anaconda Co. for 14 years, first in the Yerington, Nevada porphyry copper district, then in the mines at Butte, Montana, followed by exploration in Alaska, focusing on volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. His work with Anaconda also included shorter assignments on various types of deposits in South America, Japan, Mexico, Africa, Canada and western United States. Since 1981 he has been a consulting geologist, based in Alaska, working on a variety of ore deposits and districts world-wide. This has included porphyry deposits in Chile, Peru, Argentina, Indonesia, Namibia, Alaska and Canada, Mt. Isa type deposits in Australia, and massive sulfide deposits in Alaska. The focus has been on longer-term projects involving geological mapping, structure and mineralization in outcrop, mines and drill core and geological interpretation at scales ranging from details of orebodies to district and regional geology. The work has included exploration, evaluation, mine development, mining, geological staff training and problems of ore genesis, and has resulted in numerous consulting reports and several published papers. In 2003 he received the SEG (Society of Economic Geologists) Silver Medal, and also in 2003 the SEG Brian Skinner Award for a paper on the geology of the Bajo de la Alumbrera porphyry copper-gold deposit, Argentina. In 2015 he received the first Geological Mapping Award of the Geological Society of America and is the SEG distinguished lecturer for 2019.

 

Doug Kreiner, Ph.D. - U.S. Geological Survey

Doug Kreiner obtained his Ph.D. in economic geology at the University of Arizona under Mark Barton in 2011. After completing his degree, Doug spent 5 years working for Bronco Creek Exploration, running Cu and Au exploration programs in the western and southwestern USA. In late 2016, Doug joined the USGS in Anchorage as a Research Economic Geologist focused on the evolution of mineral systems in Alaska. Currently, Doug is working on the links between tectonics, magmatism and porphyry Cu formation in the eastern Yukon-Tanana upland in eastern interior Alaska.

SHORT COURSE #2:
COLD REGIONS WATER MANAGEMENT

Short Course #2 Description:


Water management is essential to nearly all mining and mineral processing activities, and its practice from exploration through closure must adhere to environmental requirements that can impact the advancement of a project, economic success of an operating mine, and effective mine closure. Cold region conditions and permafrost present an additional challenge to the management of water. This short course will focus on the unique water management challenges in cold regions, innovative approaches, and practical solutions. Topics to be covered include surface and groundwater systems influenced by cold region processes, water, and load balance development, design of water management infrastructure founded on permafrost, and water treatment. Several case studies will be presented to demonstrate practical and cost-effective approaches to the management of water in cold regions.

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Short Course #2 (Cold Regions Water Management) Instructors:

Tom Sharp, Ph.D., PE, PEng

Tom Sharp is a civil/environmental engineer at SRK Consulting with over 20 years experience in mine water management and treatment at sites in North America, Europe, South America, and Central Asia. He has prepared numerous mine water management plans. He has designed water management infrastructure including interception channels, diversion channels, rock drains and sedimentation ponds water. In addition to his hydrotechnical experience, he also has developed numerous water quality predictive models for mines and metallurgical facilities. He also has significant experience in the research, development, testing, design, operation and cost estimation of mine water treatment systems as well as evaluating management and disposal alternatives for water treatment sludge and other residual products.

Michael Royle, MAppSc. PGeo

Michael Royle is a Principal Hydrogeologist at SRK Consulting with over 25 years’ of project experience in Canada, USA, South America, Australia, and Africa.  Much of the work has included running multidisciplinary programs as project manager and lead hydrogeologist in the Canadian and US arctic regions.  His project experience includes slope stability investigations and depressurisation, open pit and underground mine dewatering, rock mass characterization, mine closure, tailings dam seepage, environmental monitoring, and contaminant hydrogeology.  Michael worked in instrumentation prior to hydrogeology, so his geological experience and instrumentation knowledge have been used to guide the planning and investigation the groundwater aspects of mining projects.  He was the first to start installing deep, grouted transducer systems and using the Westbay MP System in permafrost environments, both of which are becoming standard approaches for assessing deep sub-permafrost hydrogeological environments.

 

Ivan Clark PE

Ivan is a registered Civil engineer in the state of Alaska with 18 years of experience in civil design and surface water management. He received a B.Sc. in Mining Engineering from Montana Teck in 2001. Following graduation, he relocated to Maryland for 8 years to pursue Civil Engineering focused on land development and surface water management. He relocated to Alaska in 2009 to peruse the challenges of Civil Engineering in Alaska with a focus on mining-related development. He has provided water management design and support for projects 16 states, 2  provinces of Canada and Mongolia. Design aspects include conveyance channels and pipe sizing for both pressure and gravity flow, spillways, water management pond sizing, dam design, mass grading plans, closure water management plans, construction support, modeling, and cost estimating.

 

Christopher Stevens, PhD

Christopher is a geocryologist at SRK Consulting with 10 years of experience working on Arctic and Subarctic projects. He specializes in permafrost and ground ice characterization, periglacial geomorphology, thermal analysis, numerical thermal modeling, and thermal design of infrastructure founded on permafrost. Prior to joining SRK in 2012, he held a national science and engineering research council position with the Geological Survey of Canada. Christopher has worked widely on both terrestrial and subsea permafrost-related to mining and oil and gas projects in the USA, Canada, Russia, and Greenland. His cold region experience has included thermal design of water and tailings management infrastructure, terrain and climate analysis, characterization of permafrost and groundwater systems, estimation of mine waste freezeback and design of thermal covers for closure, design of environmental monitoring programs, and development of geophysical applications for monitoring of cold region processes. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings related to his area of expertise.

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