HolcombeCoughlinOliver

I am an economic geologist, until mid-2010 the Professor of Economic Geology and Director of the Economic Geology Research Unit at James Cook University, with an academic background in metamorphic petrology and structural geology. I have 30 years of experience in research and consultancy in ‘hydrothermal geology’, straddling economic and structural geology, geochemistry and petrology. This diverse academic and industry research experience gives me considerable breadth in trying to deal with the range of geological problems that face minerals exploration and mining geologists.

My skills, interests and motivation lie in combining multiple data-sets into an understanding of how fluids moved, and transported metals, during geological processes. I like to work with rocks in the field, in the mine, in geochemical and isotopic databases, in drill-core, with a laser-ablation-ICPMS or other analytical device, and in hands-on field trips and workshops. 

My consulting activities, and my research interests, involve the identification of fluid pathways and precipitation processes, the assessment of the timing of fluid flow and metal transporting events, the analysis of complex geochemical data sets, and the application of all of these to alteration recognition, ore deposit targeting, and mine expansion. Most of my direct practical skills relate to the identification of processes and patterns involving alteration, veins, and mineralization, from a mine-to-field perspective, and the recognition of mineralization ‘vectors’. Recently, this work has extended into the increasing need for geologists to be able to describe and quantify the detailed nature of their ores microscopically and analytically, so that the metallurgists and engineers can improve metal recoveries with greater profit.

My commodity-related experience is in IOCGs and related U and Mo deposits, ‘orogenic gold’ deposits particularly in BIFs and black shales, BIF-hosted iron ores, shale-hosted Pb-Zn and Cu deposits, skarn-hosted Zn-Cu-Au and U deposits, and intrusion-related and epithermal gold deposits. Much of my work has been in Precambrian rocks, but recent work looking at active extension, geothermal circulation and epithermal mineralization in the Taupo Volcanic Zone in New Zealand has helped me understand the dynamics of older systems. My field and mine experience has spanned western Queensland (Mount Isa), the Pilbara and Yilgarn of Western Australia, the Sveccofennian in Finland, the Neo-Archean and Neoproterozoic fold belts of Brasil, the Mesoproterozoic of Broken Hill, Flinders Ranges and McDonnell Ranges of South Australia and Northern Territory, the Cretaceous Tintina gold belt of the Yukon and Alsaka, base metals and gold in Paleozoic skarns in northeastern Queensland, and the epithermal gold districts of Taupo and Coromandel (New Zealand).