I have the pleasure of being the winner of the Hutchison Medal of the Geological Association of Canada for 2016-2017. As part of the conditions of the award the candidate undertakes a lecture tour and this entry is a synopsis of leg #1 of the tour, where I gave four lectures in Ontario. The two lectures presented included: “The interplay of magmatism, tectonics, and basic redox in the genesis of the Wolverine VMS deposit, Yukon” (Wolverine lecture), and a talk on Zn-rich VMS deposits (I recycled this from my 2015-2016 Howard Street Robinson lecture tour).
The tour started where I started my professional career at Laurentian University on January 16th, 2017 where I gave the Wolverine lecture. It was great to be back in Sudbury amongst colleagues and students at Laurentian (where I still hold an Adjunct appointment!). The talk was attended by a lot of students and there was a great discussion after the talk. I owe special thanks to Elizabeth Turner and Dan Kontak for their hospitality while there. It’s always a pleasure to get back to the place where I got my start, and with the people who gave me that opportunity!
The second lecture of the tour was on January 17th in Toronto as part of the Toronto Geological Discussion Group (TGDG). It was an industry-dominated audience and I gave the Wolverine talk. The presentation was also webcast via Geosoft; there were 90 people in attendance and another ~200 people registered online. There was a great question and answer session after the talk with an excellent networking session after the talk where I had a chance to socialize with the attendees. I thank Lynda Bloom for the invite to present; Taronish Pithawala for all the technical help leading up and during the presentation, including the webcast; Jane Werniuk for providing logistical help; and others of the TGDG for their hospitality. Thanks to Stan Wholley and my long time colleague Sandy Archibald for the great evening and geology talk after the event.
The third lecture was given at the University of Waterloo on January 18th. I gave the Zn-rich VMS talk to a student-packed audience. The number of students in attendance was really impressive. The post-talk discussions with Brian Kendall (my host), Shoufa Lin, Chris Yackymchuk, Martin Ross, and their graduate students was fantastic. It was also great to see my colleague from Laurentian University, Darrel Long, who resides it the Waterloo area (thanks for the pick up at the train station and the chance to catch up!). I owe special thanks to my host Brian Kendall who provided the invite and dealt with all the logistics on the ground at Waterloo (and the awesome Waterloo water bottle)!
The final talk of leg #1 was at Western University on January 19th. I gave the Wolverine talk to another student-rich audience and had a great time catching up with colleagues there. Thanks to Bob Linnen, Steph Perrouty, Martina Bertelli, Neil Banerjee, Phil McCausland, and Bill Church for spending time with me while there. The afternoon social at the Grad Club with the students was appreciated and a great send off! I owe special thanks to Roberta Flemming for her hospitality while there and thanks for both the awesome UWO mug and the lab tours while there!
Besides a delayed bag for 20 hours on the front end, and a few hour delay on the way back, it was pretty smooth traveling!
As always these tours have a lot of help behind the scenes from GAC volunteers and staff and I owe special thanks to Alwynne Beaudoin (GAC Tour Coordinator) for her logistical help, and Karen Johnston at GAC headquarters for answering so many questions and her help with the travel planning!
Stay tuned for more to come in February, March, and April!
Economic Geology Blog 