AusIMM Geoscience Webinar Olympic Dam & REE
On Friday 28 July 2023 the AusIMM Geoscience society is hosting a webinar from 12;30 to 1;30 EST titled “Olympic Dam, the world's largest IOCG deposit - But what about rare earth elements?” The presenter is guest speaker, Dr Kathy Ehrig, Superintendent Geometallurgy at BHP Olympic Dam, who’s role includes the understanding in mineral systems, deportment of REE, and implications on processing.
Join webinar through ?Webinar: Olympic Dam, the world's largest IOCG deposit - But what about rare earth elements? (ausimm.com)
Dr Kathy Ehrig completed a Ph.D. degree in geology from the University of California-Berkeley in 1991 and left San Francisco in 1992 to join the former WMC as a research geologist to work on the genesis of the Olympic Dam deposit and to provide mineralogical support to metallurgy.
In 2006, she moved to Adelaide to lead the development of a geometallurgy program. In recognition of her contribution to the geologic and geometallurgical understanding of the Olympic Dam deposit, Kathy has received the Professional Excellence Award from the AusIMM (2017), a degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa from Flinders University (2017), the Bruce Hobbs Medal (Geological Society of Australia, 2018), the Roy Woodall Medal (Australian Geoscience Council, 2020), and the SEG Silver Medal (2020).
Background notes;
According to one Research-gate reference; “Olympic Dam is a world-class breccia-hosted iron-oxide copper-gold-uranium ore deposit located in the Gawler Craton, South Australia. It contains elevated concentrations of rare earth elements (REE) which occur as the REE minerals bastn?site, synchysite, florencite, monazite, and xenotime”.
According to a public reference by L.J Reynolds (2000) “the 1,590Ma Olympic Dam Cu-U-Au-Ag-REE deposit is hosted by the Olympic Dam Breccia Complex, a large hydrothermal breccia system wholly contained within the Proterzoic Roxby Downs Granite. Initial hydrothermal activity was probably localized by dextral falul jog structures. Subsequent development involved repetitive overprinting physical, chemical and volcanic brecciation mechanisms, resulting in a highly variable array of irregular shaped and distributed breccia zones with widely differing and gradational lithologies. A complex pattern of hydrothermal alteration dominated by hematite and sericite, with lesser chlorite, siderite and quartz is associated with the breccia zones. Mineralization with the deposit is intimately associated with iron-oxide alteration of the granitoid, which dominantly occurs as hematite, with lesser magnetite at depth and on the periphery of the breccia complex.?