What comes next? Describers or Explorers?

[k...@condorconsult.com]

Dear Colleagues

 

A few days ago, I passed along a link to Schodde’s most recent piece. While not his primary focus, his laying out of the mineral renewal landscape leaves the question for the attentive audience ‘what is to be done?’ as the obvious next step to address. Given Schodde has described the decline in discovery/development performance with his normal ‘micrometric precision’,  we can be assured that Schodde has been watching how the industry has been  responding to renewal challenge.  While we don’t see Schodde being what I’d term ‘judgmental’, I do feel he is with likely disappointed with what has to be described as a mediocre performance of the mining industry as a whole.

 

If we say that some level of change in how exploration is carried out is required, what does this look like? Starting with where we are now is likely a good start. We know in minerals that geologists are the dominate part of the ‘team’ and a one of their primary attributes is their penchant to describe things; describe an outcrop, describe a mineral, describe an alteration pattern and of course, describe a piece of core. While there are a number of technical extensions to the available tools, two primary ones remain as ‘main stays’; a rock hammer and a hand lens. The dominate contribution then is how geologists serve as ‘describers’. However, in the oil exploration world, I will suggest the geologist, possibly once attached to the rock hammer and hand lens, has extended their ‘tool kit’ to seismics being the must have ‘rock hammer and hand lens’ of the modern era. The attached article (Hightail - Receive Seismics) shows how geologists have extended their capability of being just a ‘describer’ to a full-fledged ‘explorer’ who is now able to explore the world in a fashion never before conceived possible. Geophysics has become in effect a prosthetic device that allows the explorer’s ideas to become a new reality.  

 

When does a new reality emerge? Not always after a long period of frustrating trial and error but sometimes amazingly rapidly when a creative idea and innovation come together. Such an exceptional event occurred in the mid-1950s in what was to become one of legendary mining camps of Canada, located in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada. A recent piece in Preview (Hightail - Receive Explorers) outlines these events. Finding deposits that will become orebodies is still a major task involving the efforts of many people. For explorers, it is important to be able to generate more ‘possibilities’ that could be come future mines.

 

Best/Ken

 

 

 

 

 

Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to always be a child.

If no use is made of the labours of the past, the world must always remain

in the infancy of knowledge. Cicero.

 

Condor Consulting, Inc

St. 150-2201 Kipling St.

Lakewood CO 80215 USA

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Vancouver BC Canada V6B 2Z4

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[Jayson Meyers]

As scientists we avoid admitting that many mineral deposit discoveries are made by accidents, such as testing a target for one type of mineralisation but discovering something else that is completely unexpected, drilling too deep or in the wrong place or wrong direction, and most blind geophysical bullseye anomalies don't turn out to be mineral discoveries, and often the source of the anomaly cannot be explained, blind bullseye targets rarely come good so LUCK must be considered a factor.

Maybe one day we will admit it and embrace it so will can attempt to quantify serendipity and luck to apply their factors into improving our exploration strategies and drill planning.

Cheers,

Jayson 

On 29 Oct 2025, at 7:24 am, k...@condorconsult.com wrote:



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[Kim Frankcombe]

Ken

It will take at least a couple of generations before we'll have grad geos with a basic understanding of geophysics. I've noticed that as my clients get younger their IT skills improve but their knowledge about geophysics decreases as does their numeracy. I propose that this is driven at least in part by the hollowing out of Geophysics courses at university and the expert staff who might teach them. Numeracy is not helped by declining standards in our schools. We are left with very clever academic geos with a very narrow band of expertise teaching students topics way outside of their area of knowledge. That leads to phrases I hear so often at their presentations like "This is the geophysics..." or "They went and collected the geophysics.." etc. No granular detail, no mention and often no understanding of what "the geophysics" is (viz mag, grav, EM etc).

Given that Unis are businesses driven by a need to at least break even, the decline in geophysical teaching capability can only be reversed if there are more bums on those very uncomfortable lecture hall seats. That will take time. The Australian Geoscience Council (AGC) commissioned a survey to better understand the drivers or detractors for high school kids enrolling in Geoscience at University - https://www.agc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Fiftyfive5-AGC-Project-Geoscience-SUMMARY-19122024.pdf 

The key takeaway from that was that the main barrier was a lack of knowledge of what Geoscience was and what you could do if you studied it. The AGC is trying to address that by building a programme to actively support  the groups in Oz already doing Earth Science boosters at primary and secondary school as well as passively raising general community awareness through Geotourism. It is a big programme aiming to spend ~$50M over 8 years to build Earth Science awareness in a sustainable way so that at the end of 8 years the programme is no longer needed and there are enough enrolments to keep departments open and even grow.

In the short term however band aids will be needed at university and programmes like ASEG's CAGE and SEG's SAGE and Evolve go part of the way to addressing that but only reach a tiny fraction of the audience that needs to be reached. Professional development for the remaining educators is obvious but likely a harder ask because of time constraints (and pride). Incursions by us as professionals into uni courses is also a relatively easy task and that is happening in some institutions who have contacts outside of the bricks and mortar of the uni. I'd argue that it is not a tool that is being used nearly enough though. It may be that SEG and ASEG could generate a list of industry experts with sufficient communications skills and spare time to be able to offer useful content to a uni course. This list could then be promulgated amongst the unis. For the most part I'd expect that the industry expert involvement would be provided free of charge so the only real barrier to taking it up would be time (and pride again). Another tool would be for the creation of more internship opportunities. If the student has some geophysics or physics background then taking them on in our consulting groups is straight forward but harder if they believe that 5 squared is 10. In those cases it would be up to those mid tiers and majors who still have geophysics departments to show them the full flavour of exploration in the relatively short time they have them. A group of young Geos based in Eastern Australia is in the process of setting up an "exchange" called Connect2Industry which aims to connect students or recent grads to internship or vac' work partners. - https://connect2industry.com.au/

Cheers
Kim

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--

Kim Frankcombe

Senior Consulting Geophysicist

ExploreGeo

PO Box 1191, Wangara, WA 6947 AUSTRALIA

Unit 6,10 O’Connor Way, Wangara, WA 6065, Australia

Phone +61 (0)8 62017719 - if your call goes to voice mail, leave a message. It converts to an email which I'll get where ever I am!

Email k...@exploregeo.com.au

[Rolf N Pedersen]

Side story.

Serendipity, from Serendip, the Persian (via Sanskrit) name for Sri Lanka, the land found when peoples were on their way to India.

Rolf

[John McGaughey]

Regarding a perceived gap between industry training requirements and global academic capabilities to meet them, I’m involved in a current training initiative for mining and geotech engineers that may have relevance. (In which there are even a couple of industry geophysicists leading training modules!) The objective is to close a gap with respect to training the next generation of mining engineers for a future in which underground mass mining (caving) is common. Perhaps it has relevance to exploration. More details here: https://sgummi.com/

 

John McGaughey

Mira Geoscience

 

From: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au> On Behalf Of Rolf N Pedersen
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2025 12:17 AM
To: Kim Frankcombe <k...@exploregeo.com.au>
Cc: seg...@aseg.org.au
Subject: Re: [SEGMIN] What comes next? Describers or Explorers?

 

  ATTENTION: Ce courriel provient d’une adresse externe. / This message originated outside Mira Geoscience. 

[Kim Frankcombe]

I'll add this to the evidence base, published yesterday

https://www.science.org/content/article/geoscientist-shortage-could-undermine-u-s-australian-deal-critical-minerals

It doesn't mention geophysics but reinforces the whole of Geoscience problem we have.

Cheers
Kim

[Bill Peters]

It seems there are two issues which interact with each other.

 

• Universities closing Geoscience Departments because low student numbers make them uneconomic to maintain under the current funding arrangements.
• Students not choosing a Geoscience career because it is not cool/ fashionable/ too hard?

 

Maybe we need a new Federal Department of “National Strategic Interests” with a hefty budget to subsidise University Geoscience Departments? ( “we are from the government and here to help you…..”)

 

The only thing that is going to help fix this is:

 

• Money from somewhere supporting these Universities to keep these Department viable.
• Large programs encouraging up and coming students to choose a geoscience career via educating and inspiring them in advance.

 

Kim has pointed out the great efforts by the AGC, CAGE and SAGE to try and help the second issue.

 

The other thing highlighted by Kim is the shortage of suitable trained educators as well. That one is not easy to overcome. Maybe the new Department of “National Strategic Interests” would provide financial incentive for properly skilled professionals to at least teach part time.

 

Cheers

Bill

 

 

 

From: 'Kim Frankcombe' via SEGMIN ASEG
Sent: 30 October, 2025 2:24 PM
To: seg...@aseg.org.au
Subject: Re: [SEGMIN] What comes next? Describers or Explorers?

 

[EXTERNAL EMAIL] DO NOT CLICK links or attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

[Richard Smith]

The US has a similar geoscience training crisis, if not worse as their degradation of the training system has been longer and more sustained. 

The talent and training pool now is in the subcontinent and Africa. 

Regards

Richard Smith

 

[Richard Smith]

In the old days parents and families would see add for geoscientists jobs in newspapers.  This was good publicity for the geosphere.  The industry spending dollars on job ads was indirect advertising for the industry.  We need more of this.  

I doubt the general public get fed many on-line job ads now -- the "algorithms" are killing the industry.

However, last year I saw a newspaper ad from BHP about their general potash development in Saskatchewan.  The Ontario government had an ad for the ring of fire mine development during the "world series" playoffs last week.  We need more of this.  

Regards

Richard Smith

 

[Greg Hodges]

How much of the degradation of University Geoscience is due to loss of sponsorship from mining companies headquartered in the same country as the university?  It seems to me that a mining company headquartered on another continent is not going to support - directly or indirectly - a university in Canada the same way a Falconbridge or Noranda did.  Is that a problem, in countries like Canada, Australia, and other mineral-rich nations?   So much of the expenditure on mineral exploration seems to flow through entrepreneurial juniors now, who might be doing a good job at exploration, but haven't the deep pockets to support the schools.

Greg Hodges

[Greg Street]

So have ypu talked to your Federal MOP yet

Only way to get change

Greg

[Henry Lyatsky]

This decline of quality is an inevitable result of mass schooling.  "More means worse," as Kingsley Amis used to say.

Check out Allan Bloom's book "The Closing of the American Mind" on how this decline began catastrophically in the 1960s, and it's only got worse since then.  Ignorance of basics and of history of ideas, razor-narrow specialization, lack of accountability for the quality of teaching and research in a tightly closed shop the academia has become, setting mediocrity as a standard to accommodate the mass, wokeism.

As the feisty president of Argentina said recently, "If printing money could end poverty, printing diplomas would end stupidity."

Don't look for solutions in colleges: the academia is dead.  Can anything be done by the private sector with new institutions outside the existing, failed system?

Henry.....................................................................

Dr. Henry Lyatsky, P.Geoph., P.Geol.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyatsky/ 
Proudly based in Alberta.

lyat...@gmail.com    cell +1-403-710-7490

*Confidential, not for recirculation or disclosure.  Please check for viruses: we accept no responsibility for any malware damage.

[bbou...@gmail.com]

I think we have been detached as an industry from the task at hand, discovery.  Sure, we need to teach process but without the end game in mind how is that fun? There used to be more field trips to look at the what discovery looks like and how to get there, be it water, minerals or engineering outcomes.  Should this be at uni?  Should every geophysicist sit on a drill rig pointed at one of their targets? At least once. Now that would be fun!

 

To retain people in the industry there needs to be concerted effort to get mine experience (1/2 year), advance exploration experience (1/2 year) and early-stage exploration experience (0.5 years) and the responsibility falls with mid to top tier companies.  These companies are quick to employ from contractors/ consultants but how many are picked and trained from within?  How many students do the company geophysicist employ every year?  Too hard from a safety/HR point of view? Shouldn’t be.

 

The challenge is to make it fun.  Do students prefer to work packing shelves while at uni or digitising old sections and learn how to plot geophysics on these sections with a mining or consulting company.  Every single student should be working in industry at least a day per week and further education (honours/masters) should involve the company that supported them.  Industry needs to be a part of the solution.

[S E Geoscience and Exploration]

I think the problem has been there for a very long time. We have a serious problem with knowledge and with understanding. That is probably given by the fact that we are being taught to press keys in softwares and to repeat from their manuals and other pamphlets as if they were some sort of sacred text. I am afraid that it will get only worse with Artificial Intelligence. The problem is not in the future, the problem is now and has been there apparently for a very long time. 

I have asked myself for several years why it is so difficult to understand the following text below. 

=======================================================================================================================. 

B (magnetic induction, measured magnetic field intensity. It is a vector with magnitude and direction. The direction of the vector depends on the direction of the magnetizing field of the Earth H, this means on the magnetic inclination, and also on existing remanence).

 

| B | = B (magnitude of the magnetic induction. It is a scalar)

 

d (B) / d (r)

(infinitesimal spatial changes of B in the Euclidian 3D space r, where r is defined by x, y, and z in three orthogonal directions)

 

d (B) / d (r) is the gradient of B, a spatial derivative of B, a vector with a magnitude and a direction in the 3D space pointing always towards the strongest changes.

 

d (B) / d (x), a partial derivative of B in X direction, a vector with a magnitude in X direction.

 

d (B) / d (y), a partial derivative of B in Y direction, a vector with a magnitude in Y direction.

 

Many people call the magnitude of the full horizontal gradient (in the two orthogonal horizontal directions X and Y) “gradient magnitude” (probably because a known software calls it so) instead of calling it what it is “magnitude of the horizontal gradient”.

 

d (B) / d (z), a partial derivative of B in Z direction, a vector with a magnitude in Z direction.

Guess how this spatial derivative is called in our daily jargon.

 

And guess how the magnitude of the gradient vector (in the three orthogonal directions X, Y, Z) is called in our daily jargon.

Sergio Espinosa, Ph.D., P.Geo

Director, Geophysics

S E Geoscience & Exploration

[S E Geoscience and Exploration]

And calling the ratio of the Vertical Gradient (VG) on the Magnitude of the Horizontal Gradient (MHG) a "derivative" is a blatant misuse of the concept of a derivative. I wonder what Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz would say about this. 

Calling that ratio (VG/MHG) an "angle" without explaining that the trigonometric function arctan has been applied to the ratio, and that the angle represents the angle formed by the gradient vector field in 3D is certainly an attempt to confuse the lay people and other non geophysicists. Geologists will believe they are strikes, dips, and plunges.

I am sharing two slides I used recently during a seminar at GEOMIN in Jeddah, KSA. Do you see any qualitative difference between slide 01 (Gradient Ratio) and slide 02 (arctan of Gradient Ratio)? I do not.

Therefore, I conclude that the problem is not "Next", it is not in the future. The problem is now. 

Best regards

[S E Geoscience and Exploration]

Dear all, 

This is an interesting posting: 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dimitrios-a-karras-39a89826_today-is-even-worse-richard-feynman-activity-7391159777487364096-qYce?l

Sergio Espinosa, Ph.D., P.Geo

Director, Geophysics

S E Geoscience & Exploration

[Rolf N Pedersen]

Publicity.  Without focusing on specifics, a teaching institution could say:  "learn from us how to find resources"; a company could say "help us find resources".  Both could have a header that says:  Prosperity is derived from resources.

Rolf

[Yaoguo Li]

Passing through the airport in Belo Horizonte years ago, I saw a giant banner in the arrival area that say “Mining, it is a way of life!” The image stayed with me ever since.

I would now paraphrase it as “Mining, it is a way for modern life.”

How can the mining industry check their internal competitions at the front door and have a coherent messaging on the essential importance of mineral resources for the modern world?

All the best and happy new year!

Yaoguo

-----------------------------
Yaoguo Li,  Professor
Energy Geophysics:

Geologic hydrogen and critical minerals

Center for Geophysics, Energy,  and Minerals (CGEM)

(Formerly Center for Gravity, Electrical, and Magnetic Studies)
Department of Geophysics, Colorado School of Mines

---

From: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au> on behalf of Rolf N Pedersen <norc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2025 10:37:42 AM
To: Richard Smith <geofi...@aol.com>
Cc: Kim Frankcombe <k...@exploregeo.com.au>; seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au>; Bill Peters <bill....@sgc.com.au>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [SEGMIN] Closure of University Departments and shortage of Geoscientists

 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the Colorado School of Mines organization. Do not click on links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

[Greg Hodges]

You ask "How can the mining industry check their internal competitions and have a coherent messaging...?"   

Perhaps that's a job the SEG, KEGS, CIM, ASEG and other societies should to take on.

Greg Hodges

[Henry Lyatsky]

Regarding industry self-promotion, the attached article might be relevant.

Henry Lyatsky

Henry Lyatsky
* confidential

[Alan G Jones (Geophysics)]

Now THAT is exactly the problem Greg. We have too many societies with too many agendas and do not speak with one voice.

Astronomers have been hugely successful because they have learned to speak with one voice, one coherence message, to the politicians and public alike.

We also do not have Carl Sagan equivalents.

We are fractured and splintered, and constantly bicker amongst ourselves.

We need to come together more and educate politicians and the public alike.

When the UN Secretary General António Guterres, on opening COP26 (Glasgow, November, 2021), said “Enough of treating nature like a toilet, enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”, it shows just how much we have failed as a community.

Lithoprobe succeeded in the 1980s and 1990s because we - Canadian governments (federal and provincial), Universities and industry - spoke with one voice to NSERCC.

We need to re-learn that lesson.

Alan

-- 
Alan G. Jones, P.Geo., MRIA, Fellow AGU
Ottawa, Canada

Senior Professor Emeritus
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland

Specially-Appointed Professor
China University of Geosciences Beijing, China

President, ManoTick GeoSolutions Ltd.
www.manotick-geosolutions.com/

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=fbT-K4MAAAAJ
Publons: https://publons.com/researcher/2876587/alan-g-jones/
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3482-2518
SCOPUS ID: 7407105442
Web of Science ResearcherID: A-3241-2009

[Yaoguo Li]

Well said, Alan!

One problem is indeed the internal competitions within the industry and among myriad of societies who only cover a small segment of the whole mining value chain.

Your example of astronomers united as a single voice is among the best I've read about — years ago. 

Despite the extremely cyclical history, mining industry seems to still feel that "we mine, and they will buy”, but that’s never true and the whole situation will only get worse.  Although this almost sounds self- aggrandizing as a profession, but delivering the correct message of resource exploration and production is much more than an industry/profession’s self-promotion, it is more about providing for the civilization.

A related but much more challenging problem is the perceived contrast between science and industry. It has persisted so badly among academia, policy makers, and general population. Lithoprobe and Earthscope are easier to promote and advocate for because they are viewed in pure positive light as the science that generates knowledge.  Meanwhile, mining and resource extraction has been viewed almost entirely in a negative light in the recent decades and wrongfully as the evil money making endeavor. The critical contribution of the industry/profession to the modern civilization is swept under the shiny rug of modern amenities everyone enjoys.

Yaoguo

-----------------------------
Yaoguo Li,  Professor
EnergyTech Geophysics: 

Geologic hydrogen and critical minerals

Center for Geophysics, Energy, and Minerals (CGEM)

(formerly Center for Gravity, Electrical, and Magnetic Studies)

Department of Geophysics, Colorado School of Mines

[Kim Frankcombe]

Alan

This is where groups such as the AGC in Oz and AGI in the US (and presumably a Canadian equivalent?) can speak with one voice on behalf of the miriad of societies and professional institutes. In fact the AGC's tag line is "To speak with one voice for Australian Geoscience". These groups can advocate for Geoscientists, not professionally but as an exciting and worthwhile branch of science.

Industry is represented in Oz by MCA (top end of town) and AMEC (juniors). I guess that PDAC fills that role in Canada? While the top end of town do not see a shortage of Australian trained Geoscientists as a problem, because they can hire them from other countries, AMEC do. Juniors don't have huge HR departments that can handle the immigration BS associated with importing talent. MCA and the top end of town's focus is squarely on Mining Engineers and Metallurgists where there is a critical shortage globally.

So we do have vehicles for one voice - if we choose to use them. However having cat herded our various geoscience societies and institutes for the past 5 years on the AGC I've found that it is relatively easy to reach agreement if we are spending AGC money but takes a Herculean effort to get agreement from our members for them to fund or even co-fund worthwhile advocacy and education issues. AGI (of which SEG is a member) has a lot more money  than the AGC and has paid staff and so may be in a better position to advocate where it counts.

The comparison with astronomers is often made and while it may be inspirational there are huge differences between geoscientists and astronomers as co-horts. 

1. They are a smaller group and so have built up a team like mentality (a bit like ASEG in Australia or those on this SEGMIN group). 
2. They are all academics so don't have to deal with the mistrust and lack of mutual respect and empathy between academia and industry or the different drivers and thinking and lack of mutual respect between soft and hard rock geoscientists which would be larger than the differences between the optical and radio astronomers. 
3. In the case of the $$$$$$$ that went to fund the square kilometre array the astronomers were supported at government level, behind closed doors,  by the defence establishment who saw it as an opportunity to track black satellites from the shadow they leave in the radio spectrum as they pass overhead (amongst other non purely scientific uses). 

Cheers

Kim

[Greg Hodges]

There's a HUGE difference between a big research project like Lithoprobe or an astronomical observatory, and any aspect of the mineral exploration industry.  No one requires the astronomers, or even the Lithoprobe participants, to generate revenue from the product of that research to keep their company alive. Researchers live on the budget of the research.  Industry has to turn the research into profitable products, quickly, especially in a lean market.

Back in my Noranda days, I was looking over the Lithoprobe sections with an eminent Minex geophysicist, who said: "Nice, but we'll never know if it's correct." Because we both knew that we'd never drill it, because anything there was waaaay too deep to be economic.  Neat research, but too much uncertainty, and no prospect of immediate commercial value.

Also, we're not talking Lithoprobe-scale funding to generate promotional literature for the mining industry.  It can be more like the AMIRA modelling software project: a modest budget funded by a consortium of Minex companies for their mutual benefit.  That was a product that could be used to improve revenue.

All it needs is someone, or some team, to lead the effort.

Greg Hodges

[Kim Frankcombe]

Greg

Beating up lithoprobe may not be a great example. In the case of Lithoprobe the value lies at the big picture generative scale rather than the drill target scale.

Map of giant base metal deposits and crustal thickness from Lithoprobe like surveying shows good correlation between deposits and the edge of thicker crust.



As we start to acquire more dense data in Oz the contours tighten up and the correlation looks even better. Only national Surveys (USGS, GA etc) can collect data at that scale.

As long as you remember that for every rule there are exceptions and don't blindly follow the DeBeers strategy from the '70's of only looking for diamoniferous kimberlites within stable cratonic blocks - lamproites on cratonic margins can be just as profitable.
 
Cheers
Kim

[Alan G Jones (Geophysics)]

Greg,

With all due respect, "Nice, but we'll never know if it's correct." is nonsense. 

Besides what Kim just wrote, Lithoprobe was used to define drill targets in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt and in Sudbury during Phase 5. 

Some examples are:

1) Matagami VMS (Abitibi): targeting the Key Tuffite horizon and “orebody-like” seismic signatures

2) Noranda camp (Abitibi): using seismic + 3-D geology to identify “where to drill next” in complex volcanic–intrusive architecture

3) Sudbury Ni–Cu: the Trill 3-D seismic case—direct detection logic for deep drill targeting

And there is lots that is not reported in the open literature as Lithoprobe data were used by juniors and majors alike in confidential work.

The ongoing Laurentian's Metal Earth project is essentially a Lithoprobe copycat being spearheaded with 2-D seismic reflection profiling and MT along profiles.



BUT, that is a digression and misses the point! entirely Lithoprobe is an example of the "whole being greater than the sum of its parts".

Lithoprobe's greatest success was getting all three pillars - government, academia and industry - to work as one. AND, to get competing companies to collaborate.

Lithoprobe's greatest failure, IMHO, is not planning for a successor. Now the three pillars are back in their silos, as are the companies.

There has been an effort to try to emulate Earthscope, esp. USArray, but with an industry flavour with EON-ROSE, but it has floundered.

When I moved to Ireland in 2004, I, tried to get EuroArray off the ground, together with Peter McGuire and then also Hans Thybo, but there were too many kings of their kingdoms in Europe and no-one wanted to work together. EuroArray was absorbed into Cloetingh's TOPO-EUROPE, but in doing so it lost industry interest.
https://www.manotick-geosolutions.com/users/ajones/publications/112.pdf

There just doesn't seem to be the will any more for holistic collaboration. Very discouraging, and it will mean that we will continue to be poorly funded.

Even in Australia where the mining accounts for 10% of its GDP, there is less and less training of Earth scientists to take over from the old farts in the very near future. Earth science departments are being gutted, or refocussed on climate change, or closed entirely. And this is due to the Universities acting as competing silos and not coming together with one voice to advocate for a few well resourced Earth Science departments

The only counter-example is SinoPROBE. The Chinese, led by Dong Shuwen, have convinced the Chinese Communist Party leaders that the Earth Sciences is as important as the Health Sciences and Space Sciences. SinoProbe Phase was submitted by Dong with a request of 40 BILLION RMB. The proposal was thrown back in his face and he was told it was too small. A proposal for 65 BILLION RMB was submitted and funded.


I could go on and on, but enough for the last day of the year...

Alan

[Henry Lyatsky]

A responsible exploration program should consider whatever data are available.

As for Lithoprobe, see attachment.  My opinion is that this program was fundamentally ill-designed, and that the "official" interpretations of the collected data varied in quality from interesting and useful in some regions to ridiculously absurd in others.

Companies should look at any data in the public domain, but they should use their own judgment and above all they should distrust the provided interpretations.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

Happy New Year!

Henry Lyatsky
* confidential

[Greg Hodges]

We seem to have drifted away from the original topic of this thread: How can the industry  find the drive and financing to promote ourselves?

That brings me to a related question: what percentage of geophysicists are currently employed in large, deep-pocketed mineral exploration companies, and what percentage are in lean-and-mean contractors and consultants?  Because the lean-and-means might not have the extra cash, or altruism, to fund industry-wide promotional campaigns.     If a hundred companies join forces, the cost to each is bearable by small companies, and benefits them all.  (As Doug Fraser would say: "A rising tide floats all boats." 

Which brings me back to the idea of a society-sponsored effort.  Some entity - society or big company or altruistic government - has to bring this together.   Who initiated, and who organized the big exploration efforts like Lithoprobe?  Where is our white knight? 

Any volunteers?

Greg H

Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer

On Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 6:57 a.m., Alan G Jones (Geophysics)

<alan.jones...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Alan G Jones (Geophysics)]

Just to complete the Lithoprobe story, as you ask Greg, the "white knight" of Lithoprobe was without question Alan Green, of the Earth Physics Branch in those days.

Alan wanted to emulate COCORP, the Cornell seismic reflection program initiated by Jack Oliver in the early-1970s. Jack had the brilliant idea of using an oil exploration technique for crustal imaging.

But Alan knew that trying to get a reflection seismic project off the ground in Canada would be a huge uphill battle.

Alan had been the driving force behind COCRUST in the 1970s, which brought together Canadian refraction seismologists to conduct large scale multi-institutional projects, rather than individual small scale ones.

He and Mike Berry (then Director of the Earth Physics Branch) took the idea of a Canadian COCORP but with other geoscience to Ray Price, then Director of the GSC, in 1982 (? 1983?). Alan put on the table the $400K he had as a budget for seismic experiments. Ray was very supportive, and provided matching funds.

Then they went to the University sector, and got Earth Science heavyweights like Bill Fyfe, Ian Gough, Roy Hyndman and Charlotte Keen involved (apologies to those I have missed). Charlotte was the Chair of the CANDEL committee at the time - Canada's committee that coordinated IUGG activities.

Those academic heavyweights talked to NSERC about a joint Government-Industry initiative, and thus Phase I of Lithoprobe was born through a proposal called The Black Book.

Phase I was focussed on two regions - the Juan de Fuca subduction for the western community, and the Kapuskasing Uplift for the eastern community. Superb strategy at play - pick stellar first class problems, and give both scientists in the east and the west some part.

Then Phase II was GLIMPSE, which was GSC-USGS funded while NSERC took its time to consider what to do next.

At this time Charlotte Keen had been Director of Lithoprobe, but didn't want it for the future. So Ron Clowes was invited to be the Lithoprobe Director, a position he held to the end. Ron was superb. He gave up research to drive what is recognised globally as the best multi-disciplinary Earth science programme ever.

Then followed Phases III, IV and V. Those latter phases had significant industry involvement, with funding, with resources, and with additional funding for add-on surveys.

We couldn't get Lithoprobe going today, and the floundering of EON-ROSE is the exemplar of that.

With all due respect to my Canadian academic colleagues, we don't have broad-thinking, internationally-respected heavyweights any more of the ilk that were there in the 1980s. 


So, what does this teach us?

Not only do you need white knights, you need serendipity, and you need broad consensus and willingness to collaborate, and not putting your interests forefront but those of the community.

I think the serendipity is in place, with the focus on immediacy of critical minerals (which now comprise 70% of the periodic table).

We need the white knights!

And we need to collaborate and speak with one voice.

Alan

[Douglas R Schmitt]

Hi All - I have been enjoying reading this.  But let me bring it back to the issue of closure of departments and the looming shortage of geoscientists.  

What I think it reall all comes down to from both the mineral and petroleum industies is that there have been very few job opportuntiies for new grads for about the last decade or more.    On top of this,  antedocally from what I have seen with the careers of the MSc and PhD students I keep close tabs on,  even those exceptionally talented people who now would be in the prime of their careers (say 35 to 45) have left applied geophysics entirely.   This is not necessarily because they wanted to, but they were either laid off (from even companies that I thought had very high job security) or had to move to different fields upon graduation.  Thankfully they had skills sets that could be applied in different sectors and they are all doing fine.   But the point is that there just does not appear to be an obvious opportuntiies in the applied geophysics resource sectors for a 20 year old; and this has led to the collapse of student numbers in even traditionaly strong applied geophysics programs.   So, no job prospects → no students in programs → programs shut down or be forced into more academic topics where there is research funding available (e.g., planetary science,  surface wave inteferometry, etc.) AND/OR
 no hiring of applied geophysicists → students coming out who have never been exposed to reflection seismology or other methods.  Simple ECON 100.   

We have another ominous problem that will make it even harder to recruit.  I am teaching Intro Geoscience to those students going into the Geosciences here at Purdue, the student numbers crashed from about 60 in 2024 to 32 this year.  There is a demographic cliff (no one had  babies after economic crisis of 2008),  so it will be even harder  for geosciences to recruit students.   We may have to go back to getting geophysicists from engineering or physics programs (that I expect many of us came from anyways) and had to learn as we went. 

Just some thoughts.  And Happy New Year to everyone!  

Cheers

Doug Schmitt

Brand Professor of Unconventional Energy

Associate Editor-In-Chief, Journal of Geohysical Research - Solid Earth

Co-ordinator: Geodata Science for Professional Master's Program

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From: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au> on behalf of Alan G Jones (Geophysics) <alan.jones...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2025 4:58 PM
To: Greg Hodges <hodge...@ymail.com>; Yaoguo Li <yg...@mines.edu>
Cc: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] [SEGMIN] Closure of University Departments and shortage of Geoscientists

 

---- External Email: Use caution with attachments, links, or sharing data ----

[Kim Frankcombe]

Thanks Doug

You raise two issues; Varying demand and a lack of supply.

Demand:
I can't speak for your side of the world but here in Oz the demand for Geophysicists has outstripped domestic supply for several years. A review of Seek and other job sites might not suggest that, but (to answer Greg's question from a day or so ago)  here >50% of minerals geophysicists are employed by consultants and contractors who tend not to advertise in overtly public platforms for the fear of the deluge of unsuitable applications they'll have to wade though. We use our website and one of our consultants LinkedIn account to get the message out and even then we get flooded with unsuitable applications. <<5% make it past the first glance but it still takes precious time to work through them all and although we did follow up with a couple we ended up not hiring them. Those we have hired came from chance encounters rather than structured recruitment. While one might argue that the flood indicates an oversupply, I'd ague that it reflects an oversupply of under qualified candidates. Most of that comes down to our immigration department not allowing them to work here and the applicants choosing to ignore the ability to work here clause as a requisite. For others it comes down to them making poor choices about the institution they studied at and/or the subjects they took. I can teach a young geophysicist how to process and interpret data but I don't have the bandwidth to teach them basic physics, maths and geology. I do have two physicists with no geology working for me but use them for physics problems, not interpretation. I guess the take away for new graduates is that the traditional path to a job application may not apply and they may have to be more proactive rather than reactive.

Supply:
You blame population demographics for the drop in university entrant supply. The US over the past couple of years may be a global anomaly but in general I'd expect that population is rising and university entrant numbers are increasing, they are here. What is decreasing is the proportion of university entrants enrolling in STEM subjects. This is happening even in China although their increase in enrolment numbers is still high enough for them to have an increase in STEM numbers, just not as fast as the non-STEM subjects. This all comes back to my original point from some time back that the problem starts before university and that is where we should be trying to focus our energy. I'd argue that it is driven by a reduction in STEM teaching capacity at primary and secondary level and so supporting our teachers with tools they can use to translate concepts they don't really understand or are uncomfortable teaching, to young minds becomes critical. Nearly all 5 YOs have an interest in science, we need to try and stop the education system beating that out of them by the time they become a teenager.

Cheers
Kim

[Mark Goldie]

If you look at one of the mining related job sites like Careermine (Careermine | jobs | Choose from 2,221 live job openings), there is a grand total of one geophysicist job posted (and one for a geochemist). Compare that to the 117 geologist jobs that are listed with that particular search. As I have seen throughout my career, if you are looking for the most opportunities in mineral exploration, become a geologist, but if you really want to be a geophysicist or geochemist, be prepared to struggle a bit more in finding that right position.

Sincerely;

Mark Goldie

[Farquharson, Colin G]

Hi Folks,

 

I'd like to take this opportunity to share our experiences and plans for raising (local) awareness of geophysics.

 

The numbers of undergrads doing our geophysics courses here at Memorial University, St. John's, Canada, have decreased considerably over the last half-dozen or so years (from a pretty steady 8-12 students per year down to one or two!).

 

We four geophysics faculty here (we live in the Earth Sciences Department) have been thinking more and more about this over the last few years -- sure, worried about our survival, but also about producing geophysicists for all the mineral exploration, CO2 sequestration, etc., for the energy transition -- slowly realizing the issues involved (already mentioned by a number of others in this email thread) and coming up with ideas for things we could actually do.

 

Echoing Kim's comment, we're targeting physics in the middle years of high school (so ages 14-16). We're generating content (problem sheets, answers for the problem sheets, background material) that we can provide to teachers. This material is for specific modules in the curriculum (magnetics, EM). We're providing the "theory" one would expect, but using the examples to get geophysics in there (e.g., EM being used for mineral exploration). We're also planning on making up some not-at-all-flashy YouTube videos for students (and teachers) that would be revision material for the topics in the courses.

 

The fundamental idea is really just to expose the students to geophysics so that they're aware that it exists; also that, hint, hint, there are jobs to be had in this kind of applied physics. We think that having this exposure happening through the material the students are learning and working on rather than, e.g., one of us parachuting in for a twenty minute presentation to a class, will be a more effective way of doing this. (Also, doing what we can to make teachers more comfortable and hence effective teaching the physics, again echoing something Kim said.)

 

The reason we're targeting physics rather than the Earth sciences courses at high school is because of the "rocks for jocks" reputation that the Earth sciences courses have: they're the courses you take if you can't do, or don't want to do, the "hard" sciences. The students taking the Earth sciences courses at high school have self-selected and are not the ones we want to be recruiting into geophysics.

 

We're also doing other outreach things, pretty much anything and everything we can think of or be part of. Memorial University has a couple of open-day kind of events, with some of them being particularly aimed at families with youngish kids. The last few years we've been attending all of them and trying to "sell" geophysics as hard as we can. (Minecraft works like a charm for drawing in the kids.)

 

Generating the material for the high-school physics curriculum takes a bit of money. We've been lucky enough to get some funding from Exxon. This is part of what essentially is politically motivated funding for Memorial University, but Exxon is fully onboard with some of this funding going to this kind of outreach and promotion of geophysics. We've been able to hire (part-time) a high-school teacher to advise us on how best to support teachers.

 

Also, our colleagues in the Physics Department are supportive. They're also worried about attracting and retaining undergrads. Their problem is convincing students that there are careers for people with physics degrees. They like the idea of being able to talk about geophysics (i.e., an applied physics) and the jobs available.

 

For broader mining outreach we've got Mining Industry NL here in the province that's ramping up an outreach/education program aimed for schools, and Mining Matters nationally.

 

Once our resources for high-school physics teachers are more advanced we'd be happy to share with any and all, in fact, are planning to.

 

Best wishes,

Colin.

 

 

-- 

Colin Farquharson,

Professor,

Department of Earth Sciences,

Memorial University of Newfoundland,

St. John's, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada;

cgfa...@mun.ca;

http://www.esd.mun.ca/~farq/.

Error! Filename not specified.

[dc w]

Colin

That is encouraging to hear that Exxon is financially supporting the concept of encouraging/educating high school physics students about the application of physics via geophysics.

Once the materials are available perhaps some of the retired greyhairs would volunteer to support outreach in thear local high schools.  I know I would be interested.

Well done

Dick West

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From: 'Farquharson, Colin G' via SEGMIN ASEG <seg...@aseg.org.au>
Sent: Saturday, January 3, 2026 7:11 AM
To: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au>
Cc: k...@exploregeo.com.au <k...@exploregeo.com.au>

[barry...@bigpond.com]

Colin,

My introduction to Geosciences was at high school in my senior years, through the Geography teacher primarily, and the physics and chemistry Science teacher. The school curriculum included Career Counselling for a time after every class. Each discipline had to discuss the career paths that their respective disciplines could lead into, discussing pro's and con's. Persons in the professions that were discussed were invited to come in to talk about their respective careers. My main interest was Geology but the effect on family time is what swung me to do Geophysics, I think it was the right choice... so it's essential that the school systems accommodate this approach so there needn't be corporate funding to succeed, just a commitment from government to ensure that Career Counselling becomes part of the curriculum.

I don't see these avenues available for mentoring high school students where I live.

I hope you can find the support for this essential effort.

Cheers

Barry de Wet

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From: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au> on behalf of dc w <tailw...@outlook.com>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2026 2:32 PM
To: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au>; Farquharson, Colin G <cgfa...@mun.ca>

[Dennis Woods]

Hi Dick, nice to hear from you.

Colin, I guess I am one of those greyhairs that Dick mentions, although in my case - whitehairs.  Anyway, I would be pleased to do the high school outreach in Surrey when the material is ready.

Dennis 

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From: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au> on behalf of dc w <tailw...@outlook.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 4, 2026 8:39:58 p.m.

To: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au>; Farquharson, Colin G <cgfa...@mun.ca>

[Sarah G. R. Devriese]

Happy new year, everyone.

In BC, there is Minerals Ed, which has resources for teachers at primary and secondary level. https://mineralsed.ca/

I believe they have a booth at RoundUp.

It also has a place where teachers can request a guest geoscientist to come to their classes. I've presented to a local high school this way before.

https://mineralsed.ca/learning-resources/teacher-resources/guest-speakers/geologist-in-the-classroom/

To volunteer: https://mineralsed.ca/contact-us/volunteer/

While it is on the guest geoscientist to provide the material/presentation, it takes the onus away from finding ways into primary and secondary schools. There is always a long list of local schools around Vancouver/Surrey/Abbotsford looking to have someone come.

Sarah

--
Sarah Devriese, PhD, P.Geo.

sarah.gr...@gmail.com

linkedin.com/in/sarahdevriese

[Henry Lyatsky]

The oil industry in Calgary is doing a superb job of school outreach through Earth Science for Society.

It's widely known in the industry here that college grads are useless, but we work around that.  To update the geos' skills, there are plenty of lunch talks through the CSEG and CEGA, which also offer short courses.  More courses are offered by commercial providers.

The Canadian Energy Centre (which I first proposed in the 2017 article I shared here last month) is very good at explaining the benefits of oil & gas development to the general public.  More of this work is done by NGOs and individual activists such as myself.  This is despite the thuggish censorship of oil-industry outreach by the federal government.

All these grass-roots and organized efforts arose because traditional industry defenders such as CAPP have been less than useless in the face of climate alarmism and disinformation, choosing to surrender and collaborate.  That's why they have been left behind by better actors.

Great mining-industry public outreach is seen in Nevada and the Pacific Northwest.  Perhaps Eastern Canada mining should learn from all these strong examples to train its staff and to present its benefits to the general public.

Cheers.

Henry Lyatsky
* confidential

[Tyler Mathieson]

Hi All,

Important conversation. I think it is vital to understand ourselves as explorers and to convey our coolness to the rest of society as such. I just finished writing a four-hour email to discuss all this, and after I read it, I felt really sad and a little whinny.  So I'll save you from all that and only give you the highlights. 

I think pitching geophysics to high-school students is a great idea. It's an easy sell, I mean we are explorers, adventures, business people, inventors, researchers and wealth creators. What profession can create as much eye candy as us for a short form video? Again, I would really lean into the idea of being explorers, where you have to be sharp to survive. 

I have held the belief for many years that it is best to integrate geology and geophysics from the geophysics side. We are the explorers, get that in your heads. The geologists are the foot soldiers. I have crude thoughts on how university courses could be adjusted to accommodate this strategy, such as mandatory courses on structural geophysics, economic geology, and forward modelling with AI.  I know the latter is yet to be invented, but I envision something like Noddy with a voice prompt. I think Ken and others have pushed for similar visions, at least with respect to making economic geology mandatory.

The future looks nothing like today. If we are to survive the onslaught of geologists with prompting AI engineering courses, we need to think differently about how we service the exploration community and how we think of ourselves. The goal should be to become the explorers, not the data collectors and blob makers, and to do that we need to think more about integrating natural geological deformation into our models.

Okay good, short,  not so sad.

Sincerely,

Tyler

 

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From: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au> on behalf of Henry Lyatsky <lyat...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 6, 2026 12:27 PM
To: Sarah G. R. Devriese <sarah.gr...@gmail.com>
Cc: Dennis Woods <den...@woodsgeop.com>; dc w <tailw...@outlook.com>; seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au>; Farquharson, Colin G <cgfa...@mun.ca>

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to segmin+un...@aseg.org.au.

[Henry Lyatsky]

This is one of the best NGOs explaining the oil industry's vital role to the general public.  Based in Calgary.

The mining industry should emulate it.

https://www.canadaaction.ca/

Henry Lyatsky
* confidential

On Tue, Jan 6, 2026, 10:40 AM Sarah G. R. Devriese <sarah.gr...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Farzaneh Farahani]

Hi All,

 

Thank you for starting such an important conversation. For those of you in Ontario, the Ontario Career Lab hosts free workshops for students in grades 9 to 12. They invite adults with work experience from all industries, occupations, and backgrounds to become Career Coaches and spark meaningful Career Conversations with Ontario's Grade 9 and 10 students.

Many regards, Farzaneh Farahani

Project Geophysicist

Seequent

https://www.seequent.com/

 

Seequent ULC, 20 Moorhouse Avenue, Christchurch, 8011, New Zealand This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you received this email in error, please forward to the correct person, or contact the sender. This email was sent from Seequent, The Bentley Subsurface Company.

 

 

From: seg...@aseg.org.au <seg...@aseg.org.au> On Behalf Of Tyler Mathieson
Sent: January 7, 2026 10:10 PM
To: seg...@aseg.org.au
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] [SEGMIN] Closure of University Departments and shortage of Geoscientists

 

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