SEG 45 Final_qx4 - Society of Economic Geologists

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6 SEG NEWSLETTER No 63 • OCTOBER 2005 FROM THE EXECUTIVE EDITOR This is the final issue of the SEG Newsletter that celebrates the centenary of Economic Geology, our preeminent publication. The Economic Geology One Hundredth Anniversary Volume incorporates 1,146 pages that capture the state of our science from the collective perspectives of leaders in the field. Together with a comprehensive digital appendix, this publication promises to be an industry benchmark for years to come. The volume is set to roll off the printing presses in October this year, precisely 100 years after publication of the very first issue of Economic Geology. There are many people responsible for accomplishing this remarkable feat, the most visible being the editors, the authors, and the sponsors. All of these contributors will be prominently acknowledged in the publication itself. It is equally important that we recognize other key contributions— especially with respect to the timeliness of publication—made by Alice Bouley, managing editor at SEG, and Mabel Peterson, contract copyeditor. The entire CORRECTIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS In the October 2004 SEG Foundation Contributions acknowledgments (p. 7), David A. Groves’ country affiliation should have been listed as USA. In the July 2005 Economic Geology Invited Commentary column (p. 41), the authors of the original paper are Andrew Kerr and Alison M. Leitch. In the July 2005 feature article by Dominic Channer et al. (p. 5, 13–22), acknowledgment was made of miscellaneous public domain information; the author plans to issue an addendum specifying sources. This will appear in a future issue. process also benefited enormously from the assistance and guidance provided by both Brian Skinner and John Thoms, respectively former and present chairs of the Publications Board. Somewhat less predictable than the traditional printing process followed by the 100th Anniversary Volume has been the parallel production of the Hugo Dummett Memorial Economic Geology Archive, a DVD product that captures 792 issues of Economic Geology from the period 1905–2004. The technology employed merges two regular DVD-Rs into a single DVD-9, or doubledensity DVD that can accommodate the entire 7 to 8 gigabytes of information. At the time of writing, I have reviewed several prototypes and was suitably impressed by the speed and utility of this research tool. The Society will demo the DVD at the GSA meeting in Salt Lake City and members may place orders for the product at that time. Over the past 18 months in carrying out the digital archiving of Economic Geology, I received tremendous assistance from Jean Thoms, formerly head of Subscription Services. Jean recently retired from the SEG— not, we hope, as a result of her Herculean effort on this project. Major contributors to the DVD are prominently BRIAN G. HOAL SEG Executive Director and Editor acknowledged on the product but the instrumental participation of a few is, as for the 100th Anniversary Volume, not as noticeable. In particular, I wish to thank the President of the SEG Canada Foundation, Gerry Carlson, for his strong support and his role in raising the significant funds required to carry out this initiative. Happy Centenary, Economic Geology! 1 ANATOMY OF A TILTED PORPHYRY Cu BATHOLITH AND ITS HYDROTHERMAL ALTERATION FEATURES, YERINGTON, NEVADA (U.S.A) Instructors: John Dilles, Oregon State University Dick Tosdal, MDRU Full course: April 8-15, 2006 Field trip only: April 11-13, 2006 The course revolves around an 8-day field trip and mapping exercise at Yerington, Nevada, where Jurassic porphyry Cu, related deposits, and volcanic and plutonic complex are exposed in cross section because of Tertiary extension. The course is an opportunity to enhance skills in detailed field geologic mapping techniques for recording age, structural, and igneous information as well as hydrothermal veining, mineralization, and alteration. Mapping exercises are in porphyry Cu and skarn deposits. A field trip through the Yerington Batholith, volcanic cover rocks, porphyry Cu, and related Na-Ca alteration and Fe oxide-Cu (Au) systems complete the course. There is an option to attend only the field trip. Contact John Dilles (dillesj@geo.oregonstate.edu) or Dick Tosdal (mdru@eos.ubc.ca) for details. Cost and registration information available at www.mdru.ubc.ca. Deadline for registration is March 8, 2006. PAID ADVERTISEMENT
OCTOBER 2005 • No 63 SEG NEWSLETTER 7 PRESIDENTIAL PERSPECTIVE Economic Geology — Science or Profession? Exactly 100 years ago, in the first issue of Economic Geology, Dr. Fredrick L. Ransome wrote in the journal’s first article, “Geologists as a class have looked upon the economic branch of their science with rather languid interest or have even regarded it as occupying a somewhat lower plane where the pure light of science is slightly dimmed by the smoke of commercialism.” The tension Ransome noted between science and commercialism, between those who work in Surveys or academic laboratories and those who are employed by mines or mineral exploration companies is still with us. As Ransome noted, it is a healthy tension that enables our field to embrace the wide range of the natural sciences and their practical application. However, over the past several decades there appears to have been a branching within economic geology into an academic sector and an applied sector. While many of the SEG’s publications focus on the former, most of our members work in the latter. To address concerns of many of our industrial members, SEG is sponsoring the 2006 meeting, Wealth Creation in the Minerals Industry. While this meeting will aid in remarrying the two sides of our Society, these tensions have profound implications for the future of the profession. I have been lucky enough to work in both industry and academia. There is no doubt that they are different worlds. Industry values discoveries and ways to produce more metal more cheaply. Science is critical in these endeavors, but rewards in industry are for practical applications. In academia, rewards are given for publications and presentations, and for successfully teaching and graduating students. To get published in the best journals (including Economic Geology) requires “high tech” science and application of analytical tools. Good field mapping is valued but is rarely published in Science or Nature. Garnering research funding from mining and exploration companies is acknowledged in academia, but since most companies refuse to pay full overhead rates required by academic institutions (at least in the United States and increasingly in other countries), its value for academic advancement is much lower than fully overheaded research funding from governmental organizations such as the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) or the European Science Foundation. The reward ladder in academia results in academic geologists focusing more and more on relatively narrow research questions using very sophisticated analytical capabilities. The results are scientifically fascinating and provide important guides to our thinking on the formation of ore deposits, but the research rarely leads directly to new discoveries or novel means of mineral production. Most young economic geologists throughout the world are trained at universities. The professors doing the training are excellent scientists who do outstanding research, but increasingly they have less and less industrial experience. Many have not worked in a mine or been actively engaged at a managerial level in mineral exploration. As a consequence, many economic geology students graduate with a high level of scientific competence and the ability to think critically, but little practical experience or sense of community values for the industrial field they are entering. Current economic geology education has close parallels in what is happening in American business schools. Professors Bennis and O’Toole of the University of Southern California, writing recently in the Harvard Business Review, stated, “During the past several decades, many leading B schools have quietly adopted an inappropriate—and ultimately selfdefeating—model of academic excellence. Instead of measuring themselves in terms of the competence of their graduates, or by how well their faculties understand important drivers of business performance, they measure themselves almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research. Some of the research produced is excellent, but because so little of it is grounded in actual business practices, the focus of graduate business education has become increasingly circumscribed—and less and less relevant to practitioners” (2005). The situation Bennis and O’Toole describe for American business schools mirrors what we have seen worldwide in economic geology over the past half century. Economic geology in the academic sphere has become scientifically rigorous. The results of the research provide important insights into mantle processes, magma differentiation and cooling, metal behavior in critical fluids, etc. While these insights can help clever exploration geologists determine new models for ore genesis, the research rarely has an immediate bottom line impact on business. More emphasis is needed to ensure that the science developed in academia can be applied industrially. Perhaps more importantly, academic research is not only conducted by professors but also by the students earning advanced (MS and PhD) degrees in economic geology. While some of these students will go on to become academics and follow in their mentors’ footsteps, most students are looking for employment in industry. Are what they are being taught and the research they are conducting really relevant for the business world they will enter? I think it is clear that in many cases, the answer is “no.” Company disillusionment with academia and the consequent difficulty in securing significant industrial financial support for academic programs may have much to do with the differing goals of academic and industry economic geologists. We all respond to rewards. For most academics this is gaining tenure through high quality scientific publications and successful governmental research grants. The tenure process generally does not place a high value on producing graduates who easily and successfully make the transition into industry. Most academic economic geologists, or even departments with a focus on economic geology research, do not have the background to be able to teach the practical basis of economic geology— which includes excellent geology and geochemistry but also the values and pitfalls of differing exploration geophysical MURRAY W. HITZMAN SEG President 2005 to page 8 ...
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SEG 45 Final_qx4 - Society of Economic Geologists

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