Adjunct Senior Research Fellow

Nick has 35 years industry experience, having performed in technical Director and Chief Geoscientist roles for major diversified exploration and mining companies. Nick is currently enjoying part-time research and consulting as the Director of PredictOre after recently retiring from the role of Director of Global Project Generation Exploration with Teck Resources Ltd. In that previous role he provided global leadership in generating a pipeline of greenfield discovery opportunities and delivered options for long term mine development and wealth creation, principally for Cu, Zn, Au, Ni across multiple stages (strategic planning, regional area selection, project generation, target development and target testing), as well as contributed to talent development, research and innovation. Other roles he held in 12 years with Teck included Global Zinc Specialist (Exploration) and Regional Chief Geoscientist for Australia, Asia-Pacific and Africa. Prior to Teck, Nick served 5 years with BHP Billiton as a Global Practice Leader - Structural Geology and Resource Targeting, and as a Global Technical Specialist - Strategy and Generative. Before that he spent 20 years with WMC Resources in a various roles covering mostly Au and Ni exploration.

Nick completed his PhD in 1991 at the James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, with research on “Orogenic processes, deformation and mineralisation history of portions of the Appalachian Orogen, U.S.A.”  Prior to that, he completed his Bachelor of Science in Geology with first class honours in 1984 at the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia.

Nick is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists and a Member of the Society of Economic Geologists.

Nick’s current research interests include:

• Mineral systems approach to understanding and targeting large ore deposits – from lithosphere scale controls on sources of metals, fluids, energy, to understanding localized physical throttles for fluid/magma and chemical triggers causing metal deposition.
• Improving the accuracy and precision of area selection with predictive structural targeting across province, corridor, district, and deposit scales for both magmatic-hydrothermal (Cu, Ni, Au) and sediment-hosted (Cu, Zn) ore systems. This research combines (paleo)tectonic, geodynamic, and structure studies with geospatial analysis. One objective here is to turn the art of lineament mapping into the science of lithospheric fault mapping for the business of giant ore prediction and discovery.
• The spatial periodicity of large ore deposit clusters, especially for orogenic Au and porphyry CuAu ore systems. This research includes understanding controls on self-organization in diverse and complex geosystems. Nick previously co-supervised UWA-CET PhD candidate Raphael Doutre in his research on spatial periodicity of orogenic Au camps.
• Sedimentary basin analysis and sediment-hosted Zn-Pb-Ag and Cu-Ag-Cu ore genesis, with emphasis on improving the application of mineral system models to exploration targeting. This research builds on multi-year collaborative research with Drs. Joe Magnall and Sarah Gleeson at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.