Specialized Geological Mapping

09/09/2024

Seminar in Almaty

https://ponen.kz/en/courses/boots-on-the-ground-how-to-discovery-a-porphyry-copper

11/12/2023

Very happy to announce that dates have been fixed for the next edition of the Turkey porphyry-skarn mapping course. 31st August-8th September 2024. Details on the link below.

https://geologicalmapping.com/

11/12/2023

Very happy to donate £200 to the Clan Cancer centre in Aberdeen. They were a huge help during my Dad's cancer episode.

Clan is a charity providing free cancer support to anyone affected by cancer across north-east Scotland, Moray, Orkney, and Shetland. We help people live with and beyond their or their loved one's cancer diagnosis and improve the quality of life for all those who turn to us for support.

04/10/2023

What a relief. Our third course and no accidents. Hallelujah. Good weather, great food, great geology, a very welcoming host company (Demir Export), a decent hotel (Cakir Palace, Ispir), a great bus company (Cetinkaya), and, most importantly, a great bunch of people from all over the world. Learning about the Shotgun style of mapping and something about Cu/Mo porphyries. Chris Gordon lost his voice several times, battled a throat infection, but bravely kept on. We will almost certainly run this course again in September 2024 (if Demir Export agrees)......expressions of interest to me and watch this space for more details in early 2024. I apologise for the obligatory SGM Ltd T shirt photo.......got to plug the brand on social media these days.

08/03/2023

30/01/2023

PORPHYRY MAPPING COURSE, FIRST QUANTUM, ARGENTINA JANUARY 2023

Very few mining companies invest in mapping skills. Pop Quiz. How many properties do you know that have millions of dollars’ worth of drilling, but no decent geological map? Or a map made in the halcyon days of the 1970/80s, before the advent of GPS and tablets?

So, kudos to First Quantum Minerals for inviting Specialised Geological Mapping Ltd to run a two-week mapping course in January 2023, focused on porphyry copper/gold. This was carried out in the spectacular scenery of the high Atacama Desert, with only vicuña, vizcacha and flamingos for company. At the base of the 6000 m-high Socompa volcano, on the Argentina/Chile border; only 80 km from the famous Escondida mine.

Ten participants came from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Spain and Luxembourg (yes, really) for a high altitude taster of mapping and logging skills, all aimed at producing the best possible map and 3D model in the shortest time possible. It was a group of young geologists, all of them strongly motivated and keen to learn. The focus was on data collection, recognition of key porphyry textures, measurement of alteration minerals and creation of thematic maps. (And an alternative to Anaconda-style mapping.)

29/05/2022

Training in West Africa. Time for a new Deakin jacket perhaps? The logging board is strategically placed to cover up soaking wet trousers (an occupational hazard of core logging).

20/08/2021

A new blog post. A visit to Venezuela....

There are about fifteen of them. A mix of males and females, aged from about 10 to 60 years old. They stand in a crocodile row in front of the primitive checkpoint, shoulders bent, eyes fixed on th…

06/03/2021

Another damned online talk....

With over 30 years of boots-on-the-ground experience, Warren Pratt has worked on several major deposits in Scandinavia, the Americas, and Asia. In this...

21/09/2020