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EARTH
SCIENCE
BACKGROUND
I graduated in geology
in 1985 at Aberystwyth.
Through a long-standing interest in mineralogy and ore deposits I have
focussed much of my geological research towards the interplay between
mineral deposits and regional geological processes through time.
I was trained in mineral exploration by the British Geological Survey
and then spent time in the commercial world on a gold exploration
project in the Scottish Dalradian, where a significant swarm of narrow
but high-grade auriferous veins was assessed. More recently I have
worked in the Dolgellau Gold-belt, North Wales, where geological
controls on high-grade gold-shoots are the key to success.
Much of my academic
research through the
1980s and 90s was into the metalliferous mineralisation of the old
lead-mining district of Central Wales, which is now recognised as a
complex
orefield in which multiple phases of mineralisation involving not only
Pb and Zn but also more exotic elements like Co, Ni and Sb have
occurred. Please click here for
details. By the mid-1990s I had started to
explore all over Wales in conjunction with the Minescan project (please
see the Conservation section for details). Such research involves
fieldwork
followed up by laboratory investigations and the information generated
is not only of academic importance; it has applications in many issues
surrounding metal-mining, from economic through to environmental.
One of my key research interests is in
the relationship between mineralisation and deformation. This led in
1997 to my discovery that the gold-bearing veins of the Dolgellau area
pre-date the regional Acadian deformation - they were for many years
believed to post-date it. Click here
for an account of the geology of the Dolgellau
Gold-belt. Click here
to learn about another project I am working on -
Alpine fissure-veins in North Wales' slate-belt. More
recently, I was a key writer of
Volume 2 of A Mineralogy of Wales, produced in web format, available here.
For
a substantial bibliography of Welsh geology and
mineralisation please click here. For a list
of my scientific publications please click here.
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