The 18th SGA Biennial Meeting in Golden
Colorado USA
The 18th Biennial SGA Meeting took place on the beautiful Colorado School of Mines campus in Golden, CO from August 3-7, 2025. Registrations for the Conference totaled 577 (including 147 students) from 41 countries with largest groups from the US, Canada, Australia, China, Germany, and France. This was a very special meeting for two reasons: 1) it was the first ever SGA Biennial meeting held in the United States, and 2) we were celebrating the 60th anniversary of SGA!
The scientific program was held over 4 days in four concurrent sessions covering a variety of themes, and included 4 plenary speakers, 22 keynote speakers, and 16 invited talks, plus numerous regular oral and poster presentations. Completing our program were short courses and field trips that were rewarding ways to begin and end our program. Sharing research results, learning about mineral research results from international colleagues via oral/poster presentations and short courses, and networking in a casual setting is a hallmark of SGA Biennial meetings.
Awards
Similarly, as at past SGA Biennial Meetings, the Awards Ceremony was a part of the Opening Ceremony at the 18th SGA Biennial in Golden, Colorado, USA. Congratulations to all awardees!
The SGA-Newmont Gold Medal is awarded biannually, primarily in recognition of a full career in performance of original work in the mineral deposit sector, which shall be broadly interpreted to encompass major contributions to (1) the science through research and (2) the development of mineral resources through mine geology, exploration and discovery. The tenth recipient of the SGA-Newmont Gold Medal was awarded to Dr. Christoph Heinrich who was nominated by Georges Beaudoin and selected by SGA Council out of four proposed candidates.
This award is offered biannually to a young scientist who has contributed significantly to the understanding of mineral deposits. The award is based mostly upon senior-authored papers published early in the candidate‘s career. To be eligible, the awardee must be less than 40 years on 1st January in the year of the nomination and upcoming SGA Biennial Meeting. The award was granted to Dr. Cyril Chelle-Michou who was nominated by Massimo Chiaradia and selected by SGA Council out of five candidates.
The objective of this award is to recognize outstanding service to the Society. The medal is named after Gerardus L. Krol (1912-1984) who played a key role in the foundation and development of the Society and became its first President. The award consists of a medal minted from three troy ounces of pure silver. The award was granted to Dr. Peter Herzig, nominated by Jan Pašava.
This award is based on the best paper published in Mineralium Deposita in the two years preceeding the conference (2023 and 2024), and is decided by the chief editors, with input from the editorial board. The 2025 best paper reference is: George N.D. Case, Susan M. Karl, Sean P. Regan, Craig A. Johnson, Eric T. Ellison, Jonathan S. Caine, Christopher S. Holm-Denoma, Laura S. Pianowski, and Jeffrey H. Marsh (2023) Insights into the metamorphic history and origin of flake graphite mineralization at the Graphite Creek graphite deposit, Seward Peninsula, Alaska, USA. Mineralium Deposita 58: 939-962.
As with all previous Biennial Conferences, our closing ceremony included student awards for best poster and oral presentations. We congratulate all for a job well done! The Conference Student Committee was composed of the following members:
- Jochen Kolb, University of Karlsruhe, Germany
- Gulcan Bozkoya, University of Pamukale,Turkey
- Jeffrey Mauk, U.S. Geological Survey, USA
- Sam Spinks, Teck Resources, Australia
- Crystal LaFlamme, Université Laval, Canada
- Nicolas Saintilan, University of Alabama, USA
- Paolo Garofalo, University of Bologna, Italy
- Andreas Dittrich, Dittrich Consulting, Peru
- Iain Pitcairn, Stockholm University, Sweeden
- Anna Vymazalová, Czech Geological Survey, Czech Republic.
The Committee, based on high quality and scientific merit of the student’s presentations, decided to attribute the awards to four students for oral presentations and one student for a poster presentation (each of them received a certificate, 400 USD, and SGA Special Publication from Springer).
The best student oral presentations:
- Dalton Pell for oral prentation titled “Indium deportment as a component of hydrothermal mineralization,West Desert skarn deposit, UT”
- M.Camila Sojo for oral presentation titled “Origin of silver enrichment in Filo del Sol porphyry-epithermal Cu-Au-Ag deposit, Cincuna District, NW Argentina”
- Celestine Berthier for oral presentation titled “Crustal growth, gold fertilizationand concentration in the northern Sukumaland granite-greenstonebelt, Archean Tanzania Craton”
Willa Obringerfor oral presentation titled “Hydrothermal Veining and Fenitizationas Vectors for Hydrothermal REE Mobilization in the Lemitar Mountains Carbonatite, New Mexico”
The best student poster presentation:- Lucas Danjon-Guillou for poster presentation titled “Insights from hydrothermal foot- to fingerprints for exploration of Paleoproterozoic Au-(Cu) mineralization at the Odienné project, southern West African Craton”
- On behalf of SGA, we wish to once more congratulate all awardees!
- We also want to extend our sincere thanks to both Bernd Lehmann (Editor-in-Chief of Mineralium Deposita) and Jan Pašava (Executive Secretary of SGA), both of whom volunteered their time for a period of 25 years!
Social Event
Social events were highly varied, including the welcome icebreaker, student-industry night, gala dinner, night at the museum, night on the commons, gold panning, geology trail hike, and a day trip to Red Rocks and Dinosaur Ridge. These were excellent opportunities to network in a casual setting, while enjoying refreshments.
The Gala dinner was held on Tuesday, August 5th in the Mount Vernon Canyon Club, a stunning venue in the foothills only a short drive (20 minutes) from Golden. Delegates were treated to an evening of good food, fine wine, entertainment and an overall great opportunity to network and catch up with acquaintances. Rio Tinto was our sponsor for the Gala dinner.
