Citation: David GROVES
SGA-NEWMONT GOLD MEDAL
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am honoured to present citation of Dr. David GROVES – the third recipient of the SGA-NEWMONT GOLD MEDAL. I have known him more than 20 years. Dr. Groves graduated from the University of Tasmania in 1963 and received his Ph.D. from the same university in 1968. He served as economic geologist in the Geological Survey of Tasmania until 1970 and in 1971 he became a lecturer at the University of Western Australia (UWA). In 1990 he became Professor and Director of Economic Geology Research Centres, UWA and in 2006 Emeritus Professor UWA and Consultant to Mineral Exploration and Investment Industries.
He has authored and/or co-authored 415 papers including 255 in referred journals: 6 in Nature; 15 in Geology; numerous in Mineralium Deposita and Economic Geology, reaching average 280 Science Citations per year over past 15 years. He has also written or edited sixteen books.
Dr. Groves is a world leader in research on ore deposits, particularly orogenic gold and IOCG deposits, and global metallogeny. His landmark contributions established fundamental cornerstones to modern economic geology that changed thinking on what controls giant mineral deposits and which tectonic environments are favourable for specific metals. He has also been a pioneer in the area of GIS-based prospectivity analysis. He has made a major contribution in student development, supervising or co-supervising 118 BSc Honours, 53 MSc and 92 PhD students, many of whom have made major contributions to academia or mineral exploration. He has been President of the Geological Society of Australia, SEG, and has represented Australia on numerous international committees and editorial boards. He served as SGA Vice-President (2006-2007) and President (2008-2009). He has been convenor of several international conferences and been invited as a keynote speaker at numerous others. Dr. Groves´s contributions to science have been recognized by many countries and organizations. He has won 11 awards or medals from Australia, Canada, South Africa, UK and USA, including the Silver Medal and Penrose Gold Medal of SEG, the Geological Association of Canada Medal, the Haddon-King Medal of the Australian Academy of Sciences, and the Clarke and Kelvin Medals of the Royal Societies of New South Wales and Western Australia, respectively. In 2010 David Groves became Honorary DSc UWA.
More recently, he has been part of an exploration team responsible for the discovery of a significant orogenic gold deposit at Magambazi, Tanzania, and a gold-rich VHMS deposit in the Tigray Province of Ethiopia. He has also developed a workshop on mineral deposit evaluation for brokers and investors in North America.
Many of us have been fortunate to be able to enjoy Dr. Groves´sscientific results and his friendly temperament. Although now retired, he is very active and remains extremely influential in world science and industry.
On behalf of SGA I would like to congratulate Dr. Groves to this success and wish him many more achievements in the geosciences, and good luck in his private life.
Antofagasta, August 26th, 2011
Prepared and presented by:
Dr. Jan Pašava, SGA Executive Secretary
LETTER ACCEPTANCE OF SGA-NEWMONT GOLD MEDAL: DAVID GROVES, ANTOFOGASTA 2011
It is sad for me that, due to some medical problems, I cannot accept this prestigious medal personally at SGA 2011, as I have had significant personal associations with both SGA and Newmont. However, it is fortunate for me that Burgermeister Frank Bierlein (with periscope retracted) has agreed to accept the SGA-Newmont Gold Medal on my behalf, as we have had such a successful research collaboration in my last few years as an academic at the University of Western Australia (UWA).
As for most recipients of life‐time awards, any success that I have had is due largely to highly successful research and training partnerships forged with great geologists such as Neil Phillips, John Ridley, Mark Barley, Nick Rock, Rob Kerrich, Frank Bierlein, and particularly Rich Goldfarb. I have also been particularly fortunate to mentor postgraduate students from all over the world and to see so many of them achieve successful careers in industry, government and academia. I am very proud that three of the remaining economic geology research centres in the world are directed by Mike Lesher, Craig Hart and Cam McCuaig, all UWA Centre postgraduates. Greetings to all the UWA graduates who are here today. Mentoring you and others has been the most rewarding part of my academic life. Papers come and go, but great students are the future of our profession.
I am also happy to see that the Centre for Exploration Targeting endures as a legacy for all the teamwork that saw successive Centres in Economic Geology flourish at UWA. Since leaving academia to try my luck at applying accumulated knowledge to exploration targeting, my good fortune has continued through involvement with my son, Iain, in recent exploration discoveries in Tanzania and Ethiopia under the direction of Andrew Lee Smith of Canaco Resources.
I would like to thank sincerely SGA and Newmont for this beautiful, individual design Medal and inscription, originally envisaged by Gregor Borg of SGA, and hope that I can continue to contribute to economic geology, perhaps through a minor association with a future discovery of a giant Precambrian porphyry-epithermal system in Brasil!
I have been privileged to have been President of both SGA and SEG and am happy to see continued collaboration at meetings such as this. Both societies achieve so much for our discipline internationally, and it never ceases to amaze me how SGA, with Jan Pasava constantly and selflessly at the helm, manages to achieve so much with such a relatively small monetary base and budget. This meeting in Chile is an excellent example of their international outreach, and rightfully emphasises the growing importance of South America on the economic geology scene. Thank you again for this Medal. It is wonderful to receive such recognition by SGA.