University of Tasmania, Australia

In 2012 our researchers won the following two prestigious research awards:

First Award

A research team from CODES ARC Centre of Excellence, led by Professors David Cooke and Bruce Gemmell won a major endorsement from the minerals industry when they were selected as the first recipients of the AMIRA International award for 'Geoscience Research Excellence'.

The team won the AMIRA award for its research into enhancing the ability of exploration geologists to identify productive ore zones in porphyry-related mineral districts.  This award is recognition of the quality of CODES' research which has a significant impact on the mining industry.

The research was conducted in collaboration with Imperial College London (UK), the Colorado School of Mines (USA), Lakehead University (Canada) and the Hefei University of Technology (China).

This new AMIRA International award will be presented every two years. AMIRA International is an independent association of minerals companies which develops, brokers and facilitates collaborative research projects.

Second Award

A paper written by Ross Large and co-authors Stuart Bull and Valery Maslennikov was awarded a prestigious international award by the Society of Economic Geologists - 'The Gold Medal for Best Scientific Paper of the Year' in the 'Economic Geology' journal. 

The paper is titled 'A Carbonaceous Sedimentary Source Rock Model for Carlin-Type and Orogenic Gold Deposits'.  It outlines a new theory on the processes by which gold is concentrated in sedimentary basins and subsequently upgraded to form major ore deposits.

A second outcome described in the paper, and already adopted by several exploration companies, is a new method for predicting the presence and location of gold deposits in these types of geological formations.

The Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) originated from a 1919 gathering of a group of Geological Society of America (GSA) members who were especially interested in economic geology.  The Society was established on December 28, 1920, during a constituting meeting of 60 distinguished professionals.  It is a scientific organisation that promotes the study of geology as it relates to mining, mineral exploration, mineral resource classification and mineral extraction.  Today the Society consists of more than 4,000 members residing in over 80 countries throughout the world.

The Society's Publication Board publishes the scientific journal titled 'Economic Geology'.