Feb Tech Lunch

One of the world’s great orebodies is the Olympic Dam Cu-Au-U IOCG deposit in South Australia, and few people know it better than Kathy Ehrig. This gigantic deposit was discovered in 1975 and commenced production in 1988. The legendary Roy Woodall led the discovery team, and it was Roy who recruited Kathy to work as a research geologist in his team in 1992.
Kathy has worked on Olympic Dam for +30 years, and during that time she has been the ongoing champion of the evolving understanding of the geology of this huge ore system, and the application of that knowledge to the discovery of additional IOCG deposits in the region. During this time she has also developed a deep understanding of the importance of maximizing the recovery of individual minerals in the processing plant by understanding the mineralogy of the deposit – the science of geometallurgy – a field in which she has been a global pioneer. She is the Geometallurgy Superintendent at the Olympic Dam mine, and she has won awards from numerous organizations including the SEG, the AusIMM, the Geological Society of Australia, the Australian Academy of Sciences, and appropriately the Roy Woodall Medal from the Australian Geoscience Council. Kathy is currently sharing her knowledge as the SEG’s International Exchange Lecturer, and in February she will be presenting talks at both SMEDG and WIMnet events in Sydney.