Exploration and Mining Geology - Dr. Steph Mrozek
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:00:00] Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
I'm recording
Chris Bolhuis: So am I. Got to get my mic right up nice and tight to this beaver I have laying across my mouth.
It's a very old beaver though. It's, he's all gray. It's not like a
Dr. Jesse Reimink: nice pelt you got there. [00:00:30] Chris has a mouth. Pelt.
Chris Bolhuis: Oh my gosh, that is, yeah, that's, that's it, that's what it is. Oh, that's so good. Oh, man. Oh, well, you know, Jesse, like I said to you earlier, I have hair envy and the only thing I can do, I really do want to do that. I want to braid it and put some beads in it and Jenny,
she thinks I
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Jenny on board with
Chris Bolhuis: when I do that.
Oh, for sure. She got mad at me when I cut it off last [00:01:00] time, yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: here's the, here's the problem. Here's the, let me, let me tell you, Chris, what I think the problem is with the boho household is there's no, there's nobody reigning you two in. The both of you are just in like a competition to be more ridiculous with one another all the time and there's nobody like Being like no, no, no, Bolhuis, there's like societal norms here that we have to like, you know Adhere to you're both just nuts
Chris Bolhuis: There are so many questions I have about this statement here. First of all, what [00:01:30] else besides the fact that I want to grow? So I am growing my goatee out and I want to braid it. And I'm going to put beads in it. Okay. And what is it about that, that is so out of the norm of reality?
Like, tell me about that a second.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Chris Bolhuis, Chris Bolhuis with a gray Goatee beard with beads in it is not a this is not like the picture of you as a person I have in [00:02:00] my head, you know what I mean?
it just
Chris Bolhuis: picture do you have of me? I look, I'm a,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: A big, cuddly, teddy bear.
Chris Bolhuis: I am not a big cuddly teddy bear.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I
Chris Bolhuis: Like, I don't know. I guess I can be. I can be that. Yeah. Hey, Jesse, you can't put me in a box. Don't try.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: okay, well, okay, fair enough, fair
Chris Bolhuis: me in a box. I'm not. I guess I'm not your normal teacher profile, am I?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: uh, you're
Chris Bolhuis: I have a
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you're right, I'll agree with you, you're not normal.[00:02:30]
Chris Bolhuis: I have a sleeve of tattoos.
I have a very long goatee. I'm bald.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Big veins sticking out of his forehead, forgets stuff all the time, falls asleep way too early in the night.
Chris Bolhuis: Yep.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Massive pipes, just stunningly good looking. I mean, you know, classic good looks. I
Chris Bolhuis: all right. What about now? All right. Onto the next one. You'd never answered my question though.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: what was the question?
Chris Bolhuis: what else is it about me that, that is just so out of the norm here?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I don't know if it's so much you [00:03:00] as your wife, actually, you know,
Chris Bolhuis: Well, let's talk about that then. Let's switch gears. what about Jenny needs to be reined in?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: nobody says like, hey Bolhuises. Reign it in a little bit, you know,
Chris Bolhuis: No, nobody does.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: nobody says that to you ever.
Chris Bolhuis: And we're certainly not going to say it to each
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No, exactly. There's no parents around that. There's no sibling. Nobody's telling, no bartenders telling you to reign it in.
Like, you know, you just need somebody in your life that says, Hey, wrap it up a little bit, tighten it up, boys.
Chris Bolhuis: I could not disagree with you [00:03:30] more. I think actually living in our household is actually fricking a riot.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: it's, uh, it's, it's a chaotic environment over there. It's, uh, it's good. Until about 7 30 p. m. at what time Chris falls asleep, and then it's all
Chris Bolhuis: I do get tired. Well, you know, my nine year old self, I couldn't wait to be older so that I could go to bed whenever I wanted. And now I'm older and I want to go to bed at nine o'clock.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: It's perfect. It's perfect. Wow. Okay. Well, that was a big, long ramble about, [00:04:00] uh, about the Bolhuis household. Me too. That was funny. Well, Chris, I think we're in a good mood because we just had a, a fantastic interview with Dr. Steph Borzak, who is a, a PhD economic geologist.
A scann expert is now the senior project geologist at Donlin Gold, which is a, a gold deposit company up in Alaska. And she has a, a gold mine, if you'll excuse the pun of knowledge about economic geology. That was good, right? Give me some creds for that one, right? No, no. [00:04:30] Okay. Well, she, she's a, a, a very valuable resource.
Let's put it that way. Do you agree with that part?
Chris Bolhuis: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yes.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I mean, super interesting insights into like. Everything.
Chris Bolhuis: exactly. And just want to say that at the end of the interview, a question that we asked her that I think was a, it's just an excellent answer and it deals with being a geologist and the dirty business. Of mining and, the potential conflict with that. Her answer to that was [00:05:00] refreshing and very insightful, I thought as
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Absolutely. Absolutely. just, you know, the statement that I don't struggle with that. You know, we need this stuff out of the ground. We need to do it. Well, we can do it. Well, I mean, it's just a beautiful answer. Really, really well spoken, top flight Geologist and, I mean, has worked on some very cool rocks as well.
I was loving her descriptions of the scarn deposits she's worked on over her career. Uh, just totally, totally cool stuff. And, and I thought from the, you know, you and I, Chris, interact with students all the [00:05:30] time. And I thought some of her advice was really valuable for both active students and people considering, going back and getting degrees.
I thought that was a very refreshing take. So I learned a lot from this conversation with Steph and I look forward to talking to her more.
Chris Bolhuis: agree a hundred percent. Hey, with that, Steph Morozek coming your way.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay, well, Dr. Stef Mrozik, welcome to Planet Geo and thanks for joining us. We're excited to have you here and talk [00:06:00] about Economic Geology. This is very exciting.
So welcome.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Thank you. It's
Dr. Jesse Reimink: This is
Dr. Steph Mrozek: be invited.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well, this is great. I I'm excited to talk. We have a little bit of a research collaboration going on, which is exciting. So we've talked to recently in the last couple of weeks. We'll actually probably talk tomorrow. It seems like to, uh, but this is Planet Geo. So, uh, yeah, let's, let's get into it.
Chris Bolhuis: minute. Wait a minute. When, what's this research collaboration thing? Can you talk about that or not?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: yeah, I think so. There's an undergrad who's working in, in our lab here. That stuff is, is that's working on samples, stuff [00:06:30] has sent and we're collaborating on, you know, some technique development on the gold mine, Donlan gold, that stuff. Um, yeah. Working on at
Chris Bolhuis: are you dating something then? Jesse,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: yeah, we're trying to date the, Well, we're trying to date mineralization. I don't know, Steph, jump in here. You know the deposit, better than I do, but
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I know the deposit, but you guys know what you're doing with the
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, we're, we're
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I just provided the samples.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Technique development.
Let's put it that way.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. All right. Interesting.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: We're trying something
new.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's right. And to,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah, new for Donlan. And new [00:07:00] for, uh, well, it's not really new for you guys, is it? You guys have been working on this technique for a
little while, but we're testing it out on some
Dr. Jesse Reimink: the technique is, uh, we've been working on for a little while, but an application to economic geology is, very new and exciting. So it's exciting to, to be working on economic geology problems. Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I feel like we're being pretty cryptic, but we could, we could probably talk more about
it
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, Maybe, maybe we'll, we'll drag this out later on. Maybe. Right. That sound good.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: totally.
Chris Bolhuis: All right. Well then with that stuff, let's go ahead and jump [00:07:30] into our traditional first question. We always start off by asking, Jesse and I each have stories about how and why we got into geoscience.
What's your story? You know, what happened? What led you in this direction?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Well, I think I could blame my parents, because we traveled A fair bit when I was growing up. So I, I'll just say I grew up, this story is a little bit about geography and it's, and it eventually ends with geology, um, geography, family and geology. So, yeah. so I grew up in Toronto, [00:08:00] Canada, and uh, my dad is from Western Pennsylvania.
My mom is from about four or five hours north of Toronto, on what we call The Canadian
Shield. And, um, so.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Home, home territory.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Jesse's, Jesse's wheelhouse there. So, growing up in Toronto, we were kind of in the middle of these two places, and we would always go visit family in these two places. Well, on the farm in Pennsylvania, one of my earliest [00:08:30] memories of walking through the fields is that there are these big rocks that are just sitting in the field.
It turns out that those are glacial erratics, and those rocks have a really different composition, from the local Rocks, which are like, sedimentary, there's coal beds there, and so these were very different looking rocks. that's one thing I knew when I was young. And then going up to where my mom is from, the Canadian Shield, you could see that those rocks looked quite similar to the ones that we saw down in [00:09:00] Pennsylvania. And, my young mind was just putting these pieces of this puzzle together. Um, I also did spend, I'll add one more place here, because we would go to Cape Cod. Every summer for vacation
and when you're young, you're, you're a lot closer to the ground and I spent a lot of time, uh, looking at sand grains on the beach
Chris Bolhuis: Oh,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's
Dr. Steph Mrozek: and wondering, sand, sand is the best, right?
And some of the And I know, I heard your guys, uh, your episode on the [00:09:30] sand lab and I was like, that's me, you know, that's, this is, I, I have sand. from everywhere I go because It tells such a great story. And so like, as a kid, you're looking at the sand and figuring out where all these minerals came from.
Well, it turns out, these erratics on the farm in Pennsylvania and the sand that I was looking at on Cape Cod, all of this stuff kind of ties back to pretty much where my mom is
from. all of this material has been moved down from that part of the continent, and so, like, it's such a fascinating, way to, to put this little puzzle of the Earth [00:10:00] together in, this part of the world.
Well, you know, I always was fascinated with these things, but it probably wasn't until, like, high school, when I was looking through some textbooks. My dad is a doctor, and I was looking through his old textbooks. He had a geology textbook. It was on the bottom shelf. And I pulled that thing out, and I was like, this is a lot of interesting. stuff.
Well, I asked him about it, and he said that he took a geology class in college. And that was a moment when I, when it clicked. I just was like, I didn't know [00:10:30] you could take a geology class in college. So you mean I could become a geologist?
You mean I can study
this? And it turns out you can. So I knew at that moment that I Was, going to do this.
I guess I didn't know specifically what I would end up doing. But I, I went to my guidance counselors and they didn't know what it was
Yeah, we were not,
we were not taught geology in high school. the closest thing was a physical geography class, which only touched upon [00:11:00] some Of the concepts very briefly.
And so, I don't think they knew what to do with a kid who was so convinced about what they wanted to do. study a subject that they'd never heard
of.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I mean, that's really surprising in Canada. I mean, you know, it makes sense in parts of the U S. where it's just such a Canada such a resource driven economy and there's so many geologists, my experience, when I moved to Alberta, which is obviously a very geology, centric environment, but was that you just say, Oh, I'm a geologist.
And people were just like, Oh, okay, cool. And then next subject, like it wasn't even a, it wasn't weird. [00:11:30] Whereas, you know, most of the time growing up in Michigan, as Chris likes to say, they look at you, like you got horns growing out of your head when you say you look at rocks and,
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, that's absolutely. So Steph, I have a few comments and maybe some questions about what you said. First of all, I am amazed that you recognized rocks in Western Pennsylvania as a young kid that they came from the Canadian shield. I love my kids that I have. I do love them, but they would not recognize that there's no way in hell they would recognize that.
No. [00:12:00] Um,
so that's really impressive. First of all, and
yeah, Jesse, like you said to you. we've had this talk a lot, Jesse, where you went to Canada and you felt for the first time that you were kind
of home, you know, like people knew what a geologist
does.
So that's kind of surprising that
that wasn't your
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I mean, I do love Canadians as well, but it. was the, Yeah. home was the geology aspect to it. So yeah, that's interesting stuff. Uh, Yeah.
so did you know, then you, did you start university or college knowing you wanted to go into geology Or were you still kind of like just dipping [00:12:30] your toes in the water or were you kind of like full bore?
I'm getting a geology degree as an undergrad then.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: entered,
uh, with my major declared.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay. Wow.
Cool. That's rare. I did too, but it's a rare phenomenon to
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Uh, and also the people, um, at the administrative offices were, were like, are you sure? Yes, I know exactly. I've already been through this. Nobody knows what I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure this is what I want to do.
Chris Bolhuis: That is
Dr. Jesse Reimink: A well practiced argument there. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: Jesse, we just had parent teacher conferences, [00:13:00] and I have some
students that are in, you know, juniors and seniors that want to go into geology, and their parents sat
across from me, and they were concerned.
What? What? are
Dr. Jesse Reimink: have you
done to my kid?
Chris Bolhuis: Exactly. So I had to explain to him, no, this is, this is
okay.
It's actually, this is a good thing that your,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: You know,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so maybe I could touch on that then, then, uh, Steph. Cause You graduated with a a degree and then like, what did you do? Because I know from looking at your, [00:13:30] resume, your CV and LinkedIn, that you kind of went back for a PhD.
you didn't just go straight into the PhD.
And I think I'm curious your take on that. Like what was that path for you? What was your decision process? 'cause we have a lot of people who are, who listened to this, who struggle with that decision. Like, do I go back for another degree? Do I go back to pursue something I wanted to or not Like?
What was that decision process? What led you to our now I guess.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: When I I started off knowing that I wanted to become a geologist and, and declaring my major for my bachelor's. I didn't [00:14:00] know then that I wanted to go on for a PhD. I wasn't convinced that that was the right thing for me. It just, it seems like, you know, four years of a bachelor's degree already sounds like a lot of work.
So we'll just see how we feel after that. Right.
So I got through the bachelor's and I worked for a while
Dr. Jesse Reimink: As a, as a geologist.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: well, okay, yeah, so I, I finished my bachelor's, and then I worked for about three years, in economic geology, I worked in metallurgy, uh, at a, gold mine, and then I ended up working as a mine geologist.
at that [00:14:30] same gold mine, and so I sort of split those three years, in those two fields at the same location, and that's when, I think that really shaped what I wanted to do with my career, I should just say that when I graduated with my bachelor's, I wanted to go into volcanology, and that's what And I did dabble in volcanology.
I mean, it's, it's fascinating, field of geology. I did a few field courses. I was still hooked. I still am. Um, but one of the things that started to become clear to me was that, The only way I was going to be able to have [00:15:00] a career in volcanology was if I went on and did a PhD. At least that's what I thought at the time.
And I still wasn't sure that that was the right thing. So here I am working in this gold mine, and this is now in Alaska, and I'm thinking, you know what, this is so relevant. people need materials that come from the earth, so it doesn't matter if it's gold, or if it's copper, if it's industrial minerals, this stuff has to be mined, and geologists around the world help with that so I thought, I gotta get into mining geology, I felt that it was [00:15:30] a job security decision, for the rest of my life, because there's so much you can do that is tied to mining, even if you're not actively working in the mine, But I also started to realize that the people who I was looking up to in the industry had a little more education than I did. And so that's what made me decide to go on and do the Master's and I did the Master's in Economic Geology and then I worked again for about two years after that [00:16:00] and I guess something similar happened is that I was working with people who I don't know, they seem to have like the more interesting. work.
And those were the people with PhDs or with just a lot of years of experience under their belts. there's more to the
decision to going into the PhD for me. Um, should I talk about that now?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, sure. Go for it. I mean, I have tons of questions, but yeah, let's, let's
Dr. Steph Mrozek: this goes into the SCARN
topic.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: oh, great. Okay. Well, uh, Can I, can I just interrupt real quick then, [00:16:30] Steph? And, uh, okay. So you.
say that the people, I forget how you phrased it, but the people who you kind of looked up to had
more education than you. Do you think that was because of the degree? or because of the skills they got during the degree? like graduate school is not school. It's a very different thing than like, normal school. It's not like certifi at least how I view it, it's not really like, certification. It's You gain a lot of accessory skills.
So, and I think for people, like I've often heard people say that the master's [00:17:00] is kind of the working degree. Like the ceiling is lifted. If you have a master's, there's kind of no ceiling on your career. Whereas with just a bachelor's, not just, but with a bachelor's, there might be some kind of moving up the ladder, um, ceiling.
So can you disentangle like the degree versus the skills you get during the degree kind of, I don't know if that makes sense what I'm asking, but,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah, Yeah. it does. I, I certainly felt that way when I was, uh, working at that gold mine and I had my bachelor's. I felt like there was a
ceiling I felt like it had to do with, not having [00:17:30] the master's. So I know for oil and gas, they pretty much, they won't generally employ you unless you have a master's.
It's not quite the same story In mining. You can have a very long and fulfilling career with just a bachelor's degree, but it just. for me, it was more of like, I'm really curious about these things I'm looking at on a much deeper level and I want to have, I want to be equipped with, the skills to understand what I'm looking at and, and can, add value to my
company. So I think,
your [00:18:00] question about, is it the skills? Or is it the degree?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: the reason I asked, the
reason I asked that is like, okay, you were interested in volcanology, but you
got an
economic geology master's. So why, it was just the degree?
maybe you would have gotten a volcanology degree and like gone and studied whatever you wanted to. And then go like, what's the difference there?
And what was that decision like for you?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Hmm. Yeah. that's an interesting. question. Um, you know, because I will say, now, I had gone on to do a Master's in
Volcanology, I would [00:18:30] have still been employable in
this field. So, I think when it comes to the Master's, Yeah.
yeah, especially with Economic Geology, for sure. Because Economic Geology pulls from every aspect of Geology.
It helps if you understand, or systems and hydrothermal fluids. but you can learn a lot of that on the job. I think the most important part of doing a master's degree and re a research master's is the, solving of the puzzle that is put in front of you, or that
you are [00:19:00] putting, together yourself. That's really,
really
important.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well, That's
great. That, that, that,
that answered that. Yep. I think that answers the question for me.
Chris Bolhuis: I want to, no, that's okay. Steph, so you said something really interesting that you could do what you do with a volcanology degree, right? okay.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: so. I mean, I
Chris Bolhuis: I want to, I want to talk about that. Oh yeah. That's really interesting, especially to Jesse and I, because a lot of our listeners are, are super interested in, you know, going into [00:19:30] volcanology, but they're concerned about employability.
And so is that not as big of an issue as what it's often made out to
be?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Look, I think it depends what they want to do. If they want to work as a volcanologist, I think that, that there is Probably a reason to be concerned about employability, um, look, I don't, monitor the, the job app, the jobs, with a fine tooth comb these days, but in all of the years that I've been looking at jobs, industry jobs, I've only seen one volcanology, job come available for a geologist, [00:20:00] it was working for De Beers, and I thought that was really Interesting. but they required the PhD,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Interesting. Okay.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: and I thought, ooh, man, that's many, many years away, so I just thought, Well, I'll pin That
one for later.
In fact, I do think I saved it, um, just because I thought it was so interesting, and I thought it was one of these rare things I'm never going to see again. But if you want to get into volcanology, um, in a master's, I would say the best thing is to just be open minded about what kind of work you want to do afterwards, because
there can be a lot of
related work that is very [00:20:30] fascinating
in
the, field of economic geology.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay. That that's interesting. And I think that's the reason
We're asking these career things is not, you don't need to know the full employability index of the industry,
or just that we were asking kind of similar questions to a bunch of different people.
And actually a lot of people in the, we've interviewed people from oil and gas and environmental consulting kind of have the same answer. Like it doesn't matter what you do it in, just do it. then you'll get the skills to, to move on and, and see what you want to do next with the, the sort of research skills, as you mentioned.
So we're getting some [00:21:00] consistent answers here, Chris, it seems like, which is good because I think students try and over optimize. they're like, Oh, what should the title of my thesis be so that I can get the job I want? And it's like, well, you're overthinking it is kind of the advice.
So it's good to hear,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah, the master's, I think, is really about, about learning how to do research, which is solving
Chris Bolhuis: Solving
problems. Yeah. Right. Steph,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yep.
Chris Bolhuis: the people that you work with, Steph, do they have a, like a diverse educational
background then?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yes. So I, as I was, [00:21:30] talking about the, uh, diamonds and the volcanology, I do work with a volcanologist, um, a person who has a PhD in volcanology. I work with, and he's working in, in this gold, industry. I've also worked with, a girl who had, She did a master's in, I think it was palynology. So the study of, of pollen, fossilized pollen, you know, and there she is doing ore control, and I think doing resource geology.
So this is all,
um, heavy into the economic geology side of things. And I think what
these
people have in
common is that [00:22:00] they learned how to do, the problem solving through their, their studies, and then they could transfer those
Chris Bolhuis: you've said that. Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. That's really, That's really interesting.
So, okay, then fast forward. So you got your master's and then you went back to work for a little bit and then decided you wanted to get a PhD in Scarns, which I'm excited super excited to talk about Scarns because they're like the totally craziest rocks out there.
what was. that, that master's to work to PhD sort of decision tree like?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: okay, So I have to just say my master's was on a SCARN.
It
was
on a SCARN, [00:22:30] Yeah. my master's was on a SCARN in the Yukon,
and, while I was working on my master's on the academic side of it, so I did my field work on that SCARN in the Yukon, and then I went, you know, to do the write up and all this.
Well, I had to work, to pay my way through school, so I was working at a different SCARN in Alaska while I was writing up my master's on this
SCARN in the Yukon. So I started to get a lot of SCARN exposure, uh, like right out of the gate. And, that's one of the many reasons why I just absolutely love SCARNs.
[00:23:00] but the SCARN in the Yukon was a funny one. it was a gold SCARN. It was not a very big SCARN. And Uh, I think this is
very
typical of the
industry where Whichever type of deposit you're working on, the people there like to compare it to something significantly
larger.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: World class. It's exactly like the world class deposit, you know, in Mexico or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for
Dr. Steph Mrozek: it's a form of optimism, um, you know, and that was, that place was no different. So, here I am working on this dinky little scarn in the Yukon, and they're [00:23:30] like, it's the next Antimena. And so, Antimena, which is, where I ended up doing my PhD, is actually the
largest continuous scarn body In the
world, which
at the time, you
Chris Bolhuis: Steph, Can
I interrupt
you a second? you set the stage for us about what a SCARN
is?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: we jumped ahead a little bit.
Chris Bolhuis: get into,
yeah
Dr. Jesse Reimink: In the
weeds, wiggling around in the weeds here. Yeah.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: So,
a
Chris Bolhuis: Joyce is saying right now, my mom is saying,
what is this thing
you
speak of, okay.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: right, and we've [00:24:00] mentioned
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Joyce, the word is S K R N. Skarn, so it, you know,
kind of like it's, uh, excuse me, ah, I, gosh, what an idiot, S K A R N,
Joyce, Joyce, come on, it's S K A
R N, ah,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Well, I'm glad you didn't spell it with A C, because I've seen that, and it makes my skin crawl.
But anyway, um, yeah, S K A R N Skarn. So, the actual word Skarn is an old Swedish
mining term that has been used to [00:24:30] describe
gang, gang mineralogy, the waste
rock,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: okay,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: that is Skarn altered. However, that's
G A N G U
E.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: G A N G U, yes, that's right, wow, my spelling is terrible today, wow, okay,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: we, in the industry, we don't we don't use scarn really to describe the waste rock now. Generally, when we're talking about scarn, we're talking about something that is very flashy. So what a scarn is, is it's a metasomatic, I know that's a big word, metasomatic [00:25:00] replacement of typically carbonate rocks.
most typically carbonate rocks. and basically those carbonate rocks are most often marble, which I just said carbonate rocks, that's a metamorphic rock. So how scarns form, and this will explain metasomatism, is typically, I'll just say typically, because there's many ways that this could happen, but you'll have, some, carbonate stratigraphy, and it gets intruded by, an intrusion, and you'll have a [00:25:30] contact metamorphism take place around that intrusion, right?
We're probably all familiar with that general process of contact metamorphism. So, you'll expect some changes in the rock just based on the contact metamorphism, but if that intrusion has the right chemistry, for instance, if it contains enough, uh, fluid that it releases, and with that fluid, comes a lot of foreign ions that carry, get carried out into the country rock.
You get addition, of elements to this metamorphosed rock, [00:26:00] and you get further changes. You get more dramatic changes. And that's the metasomatism. The metasomatism is like, you could think of it as like a way more advanced form of the contact metamorphism. It's, but it re, requires addition of elements and, removal to some extent, and a big change in the rock to the point where you can almost not recognize it as being a carbonate rock,
Chris Bolhuis: So Steph, can I interrupt you? And then I want you to fill in the holes here then. So this is kind of like like a layer of limestone forming or [00:26:30] a layer of limestone that has been formed. It gets intruded by an abnias intrusion and that contact metamorphism turns the limestone into marble. But then what turns it into a scarn from there?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: then the next step that turns it into a scarn is the hydrothermal fluids interacting with the marble. it's easiest to think of marble in an isochemical sense as if, you know, there's no chemical change happening. It's just, you know, you're getting recrystallization of the limestone. You [00:27:00] could grained limestone to coarse grained marble. that I think is the most useful because you're still starting with kind of a, a blank palette. but then, when you introduce the hydrothermal fluids that are being driven off of this, this magma body, and those have all the goodies, everything that we're after, that will actually replace that, marble.
It'll dissolve it in places and it'll just replace it with All of the gangue minerals
that make up a scarn,
which are typically [00:27:30] calc silicates, calcium bearing silicate minerals, pyroxene and garnet, primarily. And then you'll also get your metals if they're present.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so SCARN is always contact metamorphism. Like it's always related to an intrusion, a SCARN deposit, like a economically viable SCARN deposit or,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: always, but most, uh,
typically, and the largest scarns in the world. are related
to intrusions. They're related to
porphyry intrusions.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh, [00:28:00] okay. Gotcha. Okay. So that brings us back to your, I think you said Antimina, you're about to talk about,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yes, yes,
yeah, we were, during my master's, we were, comparing this little dinky skarn to Antimena, And I had to look up what, the heck Antimena was, you know, at that time. Well, anyway, I, I finished my master's. I went back into work exploration. It was actually a really interesting job I had. It was, I was an exploration geologist now instead of a mine geologist and I was enjoying it, a lot better.
And it was with a really great company too.[00:28:30] This opportunity, I had expressed interest, I'll put it this way, I had just expressed interest to a professor. who was looking at getting a project started on Antimena.
And I thought, well, that's a wild, shot in the dark, right? I said, well, I'll just let them know I'm interested.
So, when it became available, I applied, and I told myself, if I get selected for this, I'm taking it. Because,
it's Antimena. And I will just quit my job, I will go back to being a student, because there's
[00:29:00] never going to be an opportunity like this ever again. To go from, every other skarn in the world is going to be compared to Antimena.
And then to get to actually study in Tamino, well, that's what happened. I got selected, and I remember that moment because I thought oh god, I'm letting go of this job security, and you know, I like
this job, and
here I
am
going back to be a student, but it was worth it.
Chris Bolhuis: okay. Steph, can you tell our listeners what is so
special
about antimony? Because I think a lot of them may not have heard about
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: and [00:29:30] what is it, mined, it's mined presumably, what is it mined for? Like what elements what's the commodity of interest in scarns?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: copper, and secondarily, I'll say zinc.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: okay,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah, and there's a bunch of other interesting metals that occur there too, molybdenum,
Galena,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: And so you, the, the results of your PhD, I mean, how cool was it? What was like the, the elevator pitch summary of your PhD? ha
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I've summarized it as big plate, move bad, make good rock.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's, that's [00:30:00] great!
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Antamina is in the Peruvian Andes so what's happening in that part of the world is we've got subduction of the Nazca Plate so there's your big plate. and it's colliding with the South American plate, so there's your big plate move bad part, and what happens in that process is
sometimes you can actually, make some really nice rocks, which, well, let's face it, most of the Andes has very nice rocks in
terms of copper endowment, and Antimena
is no [00:30:30] exception.
The thing that makes,
Antimena different, though, from all of those other And they truly are world class deposits in that part of the world. Antimina is different because of the host rocks, and the host rocks at Antimina are carbonates. along the length of that chain, there are some other scarns and some other carbonate bodies, but none as extensive as Antimina, which has a mineralized depth of about 2 kilometers.
It actually exceeds
2 kilometers.
Just think about that. 2 kilometers continuous mineralization at Antimina. from surface to depth, and it was open [00:31:00] at depth, meaning that the mineralization continued beyond the length of drilling.
Chris Bolhuis: this is, beyond the scope of contact metamorphism then, right?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Much beyond Yes, this is a very active system. and in terms of Antimina, so the, the next part of, I guess, the more detailed part of the elevator pitch is that there are at least 13 fertile porphyries that intruded kind of in a very close space, basically along a structural corridor, so they were confined as to where [00:31:30] they could, occur, and that basically created a coalesced body of
scarn around this intrusive
complex.
it's, uh, like Two, almost three kilometers long, kilometer and a half wide at least, and then at least two kilometers deep, and keeps
Dr. Jesse Reimink: amazing.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: it's Huge.
Chris Bolhuis: Wow.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: yeah, yeah,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: mean, just.
Chris Bolhuis: I assume.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: very concentrated, I mean, just absolutely gorgeous rocks, like Jesse said, very complicated looking, I mean, I hear this a lot, people get really freaked out by [00:32:00] scarns, but I love them, they're just, they're absolutely beautiful, now they, there is a porphyry, there's many porphyries actually in the core of Antimina, and those are interesting too, but porphyries tend to be Lower
grade, in terms of a mining way, we would look at it is like a low grade, high tonnage
and the scarns tend to be high grade, low tonnage, but at Antimena, that's not true.
They are high grade, high tonnage.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Wow.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Can, Steph, can we differentiate between the porphyry and the scarn then? So the porphyry [00:32:30] is, it's an igneous rock. right. So that's not where you're finding all this mineralization. Is that correct?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: well, I'll speak about Antimena in this example, but yes, in Antimena, there is mineralization in the porphyries. it's just not as high grade as it is in the scarn and that has so much to do with the reactivity of the carbonate wall rocks. generally the, magmatic hydrothermal fluids are a little more
acidic, and then when you react that, Geology 101, with your carbonate
wall rocks, you get massive changes
[00:33:00] in the
chemistry, just disequilibrium and metals are dropping out right there.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so cool. So Chris and I visited once in, uh, in, in, uh, Vermont or Maine, Chris, was it Maine or Vermont? It
was Maine. Okay. Well, yeah. So my memory, my
spelling's bad. My memory sucks. Um, but we visited, uh, we got grossular garnet. We were looking for grossular garnet. And you know, these, these like cavities at this kind of scarn deposit.
I remember Chris almost died. I think we were, it was like this you? know, it was one of these mineral [00:33:30] collecting hotspots. It was like in some national forest And like way back in the middle of nowhere. And I was with my buddy Andrew and we were walking in the woods and all of a sudden we realized we're like, I don't know where Chris is. We get to the edge and we look down and there's a pit beneath us And we're like, Chris, where are you at? And he's actually underneath. And we read, what we were walking on was this like slab of rock that was overhanging. And Chris had walked underneath of this thing. And I don't remember, I think Chris, we walked down next to you and we're like, Holy crap, that thing is super unstable. And we actually collapsed part of it. Cause we thought it was so [00:34:00] dangerous. were shocked. It hadn't collapsed before. So we like, I'm getting this wrong probably, but
Chris Bolhuis: you
Dr. Jesse Reimink: okay. That's my
Chris Bolhuis: It was, it was a complete mistake.
Yes.
I almost did
die because I was with
two idiots that walked out onto this,
onto the top of this thing and
then Andrew, uh, jumped
up. I don't know, why. 'cause he's just excitable and It
Dr. Jesse Reimink: It collapsed. I mean, and we were, we were like, wow, that was, that was good that it, but this leads me to a question because we were looking at these cavities with like beautiful grossular crystals in [00:34:30] them and by memory, the metamorphic, you know, reactions as
you go from like.
carbonate to
marble, and then up to these sort of decarbonization reactions, you like lose a lot of mass. So you lose rock mass at higher grades. So does a scarn deposit, an economic scarn deposit have to be pretty high temperature? to form, like, do you have to lose the initial limestone, like the carbonate mass, to put these other elements that you're speaking of in during metasomatism or not?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yes,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: It do, okay. Alright, so they have [00:35:00] to be like 500 degrees C or 400 degrees C or
Dr. Steph Mrozek: yes, yes. So, well, this actually, yes, this gets into, some SCARN terminology that we refer to as prograde and retrograde. We probably, you probably do that in the metamorphic world too, but prograde SCARNs are the high temperature event that forms the anhydrous minerals, the garnets and the clinopyroxenes generally, and those could be higher than 500 degrees C.
and then what ends up [00:35:30] happening generally is the system starts to cool, and the fluid circulating We'll start to deposit,
what we
call the retrograde phases as the system is cooling down. And so those are much lower temperature, um, hydrous phases. That's where you'll start to get your amphiboles and possibly some calcite.
And that's typically where your metals come in.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Uh, this sort of, you've, you've set the stage at the high temperatures and then as the system's
cooling down, the, metals are deposited. Okay. I mean, that's super interesting. I feel like we could talk about [00:36:00] scarns for a long time and they're just like totally crazy, uh, environments. but if we come back, focusing on your career sort of trajectory a little bit. So you started out interestingly as a mine geologist, or you, you, you
worked your way up to a mine geologist, then went and got your master's exploration geologist,
then PhD super expert in the like world's biggest scarn deposit. and I guess maybe you could explain.
Just really briefly, the difference in those job descriptions, I don't know, it just, it seemed like you weren't super taken [00:36:30] by being a mine geologist, and why, and what is the difference there,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: gosh, this is gonna, this is
gonna be a bit of a
thought here.
Chris Bolhuis: that was a long, if you need Jesse to break that up, that was like a five
minute
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I
I guess I don't want to be, um, all of those jobs are important, and you're right, it just, it just comes down to what you're
most taken with, I guess. and so I was a mine geologist, in the position that I
described it, that it was an open pit gold mine in
Alaska,
and
You know what? I actually did [00:37:00] enjoy it.
I really did enjoy that, but I also felt like
that at that time of my
life, there was more.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: can I interrupt real quick and ask what, can you just describe quickly what a mine geologist does on a day to day basis,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: sure, sure. Yeah, so I guess it sort of depends, um, because you could be a mine geologist in an open pit mine or an underground mine, but there's some, some similarities in terms of what the general, job description would be, and that is you are, uh, basically keeping up with production in the sense that when, Drilling takes place, we collect [00:37:30] samples, and then they get assayed for, in this, example, gold.
Once those assays come back, there'll be a type of mine geologist, generally called an ore control geologist, who will receive the assays and
kind of map out where the high grades are, and decide sort of how the material is going to get divided and where it's going to get sent. So, that person may spend all of their time doing that specific job is just sort of mapping out material across a mine depending on production needs.
But then you may have [00:38:00] somebody who actually goes in
the field and, makes sure that that material ends up where it's supposed to go. So that could involve, doing some visual or control like on the ground. sometimes when I was doing that job, I would sit in the shovel and I would actually direct scoop by scoop where does the material go.
Yep. So it sort of depends. Yeah. And that's, that's fun. Um, that's not typical, but that's fun. or you know, you're gonna go check on drill rigs, you're gonna go see, you know, what's coming out of the next round of drilling.[00:38:30] there'll be some mapping involved. There's almost always mapping involved. And so yeah, whether or not you're underground or in an open pit.
You'll be involved in mapping as soon as new ground becomes available. And so that's what I mean by keeping up with production. So they'll blast an area, they'll remove the rock, and then you've Got to go in there. And it's a whole new part of the earth that's never been exposed before. So you'll get in there and map it. You usually have to do it pretty quickly because they're going to blast again. being a mine geologist
is a very fast paced
[00:39:00] job
that involves all aspects of, you know, What type of
material is. this? Where is it going? and also just, keeping up with mapping and staying, like, in line with the drilling and with the blasting that's taking place.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Got it.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: not hindering those
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that, I mean, it sounds fascinating. It could be, it could, it sounds like it could potentially be fascinating or rather tedious depending on what it is. So exploration geologist. What is that? And what attracted you to that or what attracts you to that side more or did at that stage of your life?
Maybe after a [00:39:30] master's.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: So Exploration actually has to take place before mining can take place. And exploration has a couple of different divisions as well that we'll just generally refer to it. There's greenfields, which is the very early stage exploration, and then there's brownfields, which if there's, say there's an operating mine, you'll have a production group in that mine, but you will also have a group of geologists that are looking at expanding the footprint of the mine or finding nearby deposits, expanding the resource.
And so they're [00:40:00] not typically involved in the day to day, production needs, but they are doing what we call brownfield exploration, which is near to an existing mine. There's that group of exploration. Then there's the greenfields. The greenfields is where you're generally the first boots on the ground in an area that you wonder if there's ever been a human there before.
And, uh, might be just prospecting like to some extent, collecting
samples, mapping. If there's enough outcrop,
you
may be doing soil
samples at this early stage. Also stream [00:40:30] sediment samples with the aid of remote sensing, like whatever you can, use to help. Vector you into an
area
that is most prospective
for further exploration
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So just pure sort of discovery at that stage. You're
just like, you know, I could see why it's
excitement that a little higher excitement potentially.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: it's it is exciting You know You're covering a lot of ground as a greenfields
exploration geologist because you're kind of just grabbing a lot of samples
and moving to The next spot every day you're in
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay. Interesting. And that, and [00:41:00] that is, where you are now
Dr. Steph Mrozek: now I'm an exploration geologist. My official title is a project geologist, but I'm an exploration geologist. Sorry, I should say, I work in a project that
is in an exploration stage.
So
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. So can we talk about that? So what are you doing right now? Where are you working? Can you tell us a little bit about what your day to day looks like as an exploration geologist?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: yeah. Okay.
So I'm, a little higher up the, the food chain, I guess, in, in terms of exploration [00:41:30] geology by now. so I spend my time doing a lot of modeling. I do spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer, whether the field season is
on or off. And So my project is in Alaska,
the Donlon Gold Project, and that project, is in an advanced stage of exploration. So
we've
got,
uh, many drill holes. We have a lot of data to support, a resource. That has been calculated for
a pretty
big footprint. and my job is to mostly deal with the
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So when you say modeling stuff, what data.
are you using and [00:42:00] what are you modeling? Are you like trying to model out the deposit and refine like what we think three dimensions is in the earth? And how are you doing that? Like, can you kind of walk us through that?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah. So, uh, mostly the data is gold values, gold assays that came from drill core samples. And also, uh, the core logging information that we get from those same drill core samples. So, uh, when the core is drilled, the geologists, the other exploration geologists, who's mostly spend time on site will be the first to see that rock and then they will log it.
[00:42:30] For its many properties, lithology, they'll look at geotechnical aspects of it, they'll look at the physical mineralization and record a bunch of information about these rocks I will receive that information and I will build a model that reflects, the observations from the field.
So I'll be putting together, shapes of intrusions, looking for continuity of intrusions. And then they'll sample those very same rocks and then within about a month or so we'll get the results from those. And then I'll be able to put those gold values into that model and [00:43:00] see what's controlling the gold distribution and that helps us plan for more drill targets and really just understand what's
controlling the gold in this deposit.
Chris Bolhuis: How deep do these cores go?
How deep are you capable of going? And is that an expensive process?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: process. Yes. Um, how deep? Well, um,
like at Antimena, we had our deepest drill holes
were 2000 meters,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Wow.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: kilometers. And That's how
I know that the deposit continued because those [00:43:30] were our deepest
drill holes and they kept going.
The deposit kept going. Yeah, so at Donlon we don't drill quite as deep, but it just depends on the deposit, you know, because
every deposit has a different
shape,
some are like kind of more tabular, um, and they have like, they're shallow, but they have long lateral extents. some are quite deep, you know, like another deposit I worked on was veins and some of those veins, were dipping quite steeply. And so, the drilling would Basically, drill until you cross the vein and then that's
[00:44:00] it.
Chris Bolhuis: So where are you currently are? How many cores or how many cores
have you drilled or are you going to drill?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I, I I don't know, I'd have to guess like 3, 000.
That's a guess.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay.
A
Dr. Steph Mrozek: There's A
lot. Um,
Chris Bolhuis: my
gosh.
So this is,
this is kind of high pressure then, right? Uh, you know, I mean, it's not
cheap
Dr. Steph Mrozek: No, it's not cheap. But look, this.
has been going on now for,
at
Donlon, um, I should say, since the,
80s.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Then [00:44:30] can we maybe ask a broader question then that like, how long can a job like this last? Like, you know, whether it's Anamena or, you know, something else, right? Like how doing an exploration
geologist job, how long can you expect to stay at that one
spot?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Ooh. Well, yeah, that's an interesting point. if you're looking for job security, it's probably not in exploration, not as much as it is in mining, you know, like if you get in when a mine starts, you could probably stay there
for the life of the mine, which could [00:45:00] be, you know, 10, 20, 30 years. you could have an entire career at one spot. you would probably change
your
job role over that period of time, but you could stay in one
location. But as an
exploration geologist, generally you're going to be moving around a lot. You might, see a project through to a certain stage and then you move on to the next project and do the same thing.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So, I want to ask a couple of questions about that stuff, because I think this is, there's a bunch of people, I mean, my students in my research group would find this information valuable, and I'd imagine a bunch of our listeners would too, that seems [00:45:30] stressful. So on like, a personal level for you, if you're willing, can you.
Talk about how you view that. Like you've moved around a lot in your career, different companies, different deposits. is that always stressful? Is that getting less stressful? are you kind of always moving up? I mean, you must be, cause you're, as you said, sort of at the, at the top of the feeding tower now.
and then the other question is like, has that, okay, I'll stop there. And then I'll come back and ask my other question, I suppose. If you're willing to give us like some personal, if there's tension in there for you,
or if you just really love that part of it, I don't
Dr. Steph Mrozek: [00:46:00] um, personally, I, I find it exciting. You know, it is stressful though, but it's a choice, it's a choice to be in exploration, So prior to this job that I currently have now, which is in exploration, I worked in mining, which I could have stayed in that place if I wanted to, but, exploration is more exciting, I would say, for
me, and
I thought this was
a good opportunity, and I, don't know, how long it would last, you never do, yeah, I think if you can, if you can accept that it's going to change and [00:46:30] just it forces you to be very responsible, I would say, with some of the decisions you make in your life, so I don't mind that
Dr. Jesse Reimink: uh, can I maybe, and maybe this is too personal question, but you know, jobs that are more risky and less security often you get compensated for that and maybe it's compensated by, it's just a more exciting job in these boom and bust cycles, you get rewarded during the boom times for the fact that there's a bust coming.
Is the compensation different between exploration and mining geologists, given the [00:47:00] stability and this
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I would think in general that's true.
I would think in general that's true, however, from my own experience, I can't say for
sure
because all I can say is, that My compensation has increased with my
experience.
Uh, I haven't really had a lot of back and forth, even though I've worked mining, exploration, mining, exploration, mining, exploration.
Every time I changed jobs, I generally got a higher compensation. There was only one time, and I
can remember when that didn't
happen, but it was very short lived.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So that's interesting. So it is, it is beneficial to work on [00:47:30] a bunch of different deposits and therefore a bunch of different companies instead of move around a bunch and gain this breadth of
Dr. Steph Mrozek: If, If, you're gonna want a career in economic geology, I think it's important to work, as many aspects of this industry as possible. So try open pit, underground, be a mine geologist for a while, you have to understand, that part of the job, do exploration, do every stage of exploration, you know, jump out of helicopters in the middle of nowhere, fight off bears, um, you know, like, sit by a drill rig, whether it's, um, [00:48:00] a core rig or RC, and then one of the other
things I did recently was work in resource geology too,
and so that's more on like the The back end, the
numbers side of things, calculating how much gold, using statistics and, and locating it and
all of that. so
getting a taste of all of
it, really makes you a much more well rounded geologist. And then, you know, these are the kinds of
people that become the the leaders
later on, in their career once you've got all this experience.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I mean, that is great advice. It sounds like, for people, you know, thinking about, about going [00:48:30] down a path like this. So on that note, given this critical minerals wave, so this like big wave of critical minerals, lots of, seems like new exploration, people looking for lithium pegmatites for the first time in generations, how does that feel from your seat? Does it feel like there's more
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah, I guess that's one way of looking at it. Uh, so I work in gold, and gold isn't a critical mineral. so most of my career has actually been working in minerals that are not deemed critical. but what's interesting.
is gold, while it [00:49:00] typically is uncombined in nature, it's native gold.
it generally occurs with other accessory minerals, for instance, where I work now, we have a lot of arsenic and we have antimony. Both of those are on the current critical minerals list. So it does force you to take different look at what would otherwise be considered, maybe deleterious elements or waste rock, So this is, what I find is interesting. about this is that it's going to, Get people to look at maybe their [00:49:30] tailings ponds and see what can we extract out of there that we weren't paying attention to before or maybe our deposit has more value than just the main mineral of interest, especially when you're dealing with something like gold, which, like I said, isn't considered a critical mineral.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, we're, we're doing, we're seeing a lot of that in the UP, Jesse, uh, in Michigan, the upper peninsula with these old
tailings piles. Now they're
reopening
those
abandoned mines and taking a second look at that stuff. So
that's interesting.[00:50:00] Steph, can I ask you a philosophical question?
look.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: is dangerous stuff. Cause when Chris pulls these, we just never know
where it's going to
Chris Bolhuis: alright.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: well, I have a random
Chris Bolhuis: I do. This is, I should have put this on the question list, but I didn't. I don't know why. But, Look, every person that goes into geology, we go into it because in part, we love where we live, you know, we want to take care of our planet. You know, we want to know as much about it as we can.
But yet, mining is a dirty business. So, Can you talk about that? Maybe [00:50:30] like, is, have you ever had or felt conflicted
with this?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I haven't. Maybe that makes me evil.
I
haven't,
Chris Bolhuis: to know about
this. That is so interesting.
Okay.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I haven't
felt conflicted. I feel like, I recognize what you're saying though, and if, if, um, you want to be a part of making something better, you have to actually like jump in and be a part of it. And I think that what I do is just that. it's been very interesting from my perspective as [00:51:00] a geologist though, to see what happens on the environmental side of mining.
I have a few examples here. So, a lot of times these big companies when they take over. an area for a what will be a large deposit, there's been a history there of artisanal
mining. So small scale mining, tends to be more destructive environmentally speaking than the large, the large deposits.
So the agreements that are made with these big companies is that you need to [00:51:30] clean up this mess that was left here in addition to reclaiming
And I've, I've seen the after effects of that. Like I wouldn't have believed it if I was just told this. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, I've driven down, a road next to a stream that looked completely pristine.
And then I was shown pictures of that very same place later. you know, from a hundred years ago, and what it looked like, it was unrecognizable. and this is all due to the reclamation efforts of one company.[00:52:00] I've seen this happen though, in a number of places. So, I have faith that the environmental side, the environmental groups that work for these mining companies, sorry, they have environmental departments, I should say, so those people, they are
doing a great job of making Sure.
that we minimize our footprint while still extracting the resources that society needs. So there's that. But then the other thing too is At least in, uh, the states, Canada, I'm thinking of [00:52:30] places where I've actually, like, Australia, Chile, like, a number of places where
mining takes place. these places have regulations to protect the environment that basically it's going to cost companies more to do the job wrong than it will to do the job right.
I,
think
that's very true of where we
live now. I think it's not
true everywhere in the world. So this is also,
um, part of
this [00:53:00] big problem
of not every
place in the world has the same level of regulation and not
all regulation is great, but it does certainly
prevent a lot of these big environmental.
Big environmental damage that we all don't want in our backyard, right?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: See, uh, that's really interesting stuff, I, cause I think, I've sort of paid attention to the the sort of pegmatite mining debate up in New England area. So my, you know, Maine and Vermont and New Hampshire. and
it seems like there's a lot of local hesitancy about mining because The mining that is in their heads [00:53:30] is like 1920s, 1900s, 1890s style mining same up in the Northwest territories, up in remote Northern Canada, the
gold mining up there was 1920s, 30s. Not great. They didn't handle the arsenic very well. A big catastrophic environmental potential disaster hanging out up there. You're saying it's different now. And I. I sort of would like to believe that but I think that's an important like distinction to make that like not mining is not one thing there's like a whole bunch of different nuances to mining and it can be done really well and and remediation can [00:54:00] be done amazingly well and some places it's not so have you ever Not worked on a project for reasons like this, I suppose.
Have you, have you like intentionally stuck to working in areas where you are happy with this, the sort of mining regulations,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah, that hasn't actually come up
for me. I'm sure it
hasn't come up for me at all. Generally the places where I've worked have had good records.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Sure. I mean, the places you listed are the good. I mean, you're
Chris Bolhuis: Well, for the [00:54:30] record, it does
not make you an evil person. Your answer, it was actually like, I appreciate it. I really wanted to hear that.
And
like Jesse said, I, I believe you. I mean, it's,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: I have to say, I don't struggle
with this at all
because, and I'm pretty green, I'll say, been accused of being a, little earthy, a little bit of
a
hippie, but, you know,
like I was,
Chris Bolhuis: in us.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah,
that's perfect.
Chris is
too. Chris is just talking about braiding his
Dr. Steph Mrozek: We, we, we love the environment, right.
We love the, the natural world, which [00:55:00] is a lot of the reason why we all became geologists. And we also love our iPhones and we love our cars and, and, you know, I've been, I was a bicycle commuter for many years, but guess what? my bicycle is a product of mining, you know, like every single thing.
I sometimes think like what in my life, is not a product of mining. No, everything in my life is a product of mining. Even when we come down to, there's kind of the miners credo, if it can't be grown, it must be mined. Have you guys heard that[00:55:30]
Even the things that we grow are a product of mining to some extent, when you consider fertilizer, when you consider, the
metal that is used for irrigation systems, and just for planting
and harvesting crops.
I mean, it is really difficult to come up with a way to live without mining. And
so for that reason, I have to accept that
it's a, it's
something that's necessary. I do think we just need to
manage it
as best we
can, because nobody wants, to clean up a giant mess
and,
look at a giant
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah,
Dr. Steph Mrozek: still want to get out and [00:56:00] enjoy nature.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Absolutely. Amen to that. I, I completely agree. I mean, you, you're partially preaching to the choir, but yes, I completely agree. And like you said that we have to have some nuance in this discussion of, you know, sustainability and environmental sustainability and the, the green energy transition, all this stuff, we have to have some nuance into like how we, uh, tackle it.
And mining is certainly Absolutely. One part of the answer. So, uh, Steph, I, thank you so much for your time. I want to ask one question. Our, our
traditional closing question here is, what has been
your best [00:56:30] day as a geoscientist?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Oh man, I think it's got to be back in 2006 when I first experienced lava.
Flowing lava. That was in Hawaii.
Right? There you go.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Every geologist, right.
Um, it was in Hawaii. That was an eruption of, Kilauea from the Puuōō
vent,
which was erupting at that time.
I was in
Hawaii, I was, uh,
planning to go into volcanology studies, and so I was
taking
a field [00:57:00] course there, and part of it
was physical,
physical volcanology when we went out on the active flows and observed, all of that and took samples, and it was
great.
So it was probably my experience
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Uh, that's, that's pretty amazing. What is the coolest rock you've seen?
Is it from the, the giant scarn mine? I,
mean, some of
these rocks
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Yeah, it's from Antamina.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: and what is in it? What does it look like?
Dr. Steph Mrozek: Oh, man. well, boronite and chalcopyrite primarily are the
ore minerals. and we're looking at just massive
amounts of garnet. but, [00:57:30] scarns are absolutely
beautiful. I mean,
the garnets are generally Well,
formed and they're just museum quality specimens.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh, that's so good. So pretty. Amazing. Well, Steph, Thank
you, very much for your time. This has been, uh, very informative. I've learned a ton and I sort of love, love your perspective on mining and geology and education. It's been really informative. So thanks for, uh, thanks for joining us here.
We really appreciate
it.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: guys.
Chris Bolhuis: you.
Dr. Steph Mrozek: It's been great.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:58:00] Hey, that's a wrap. As always, you can follow us. Go to our website, planetgeocast. com. There you can like, subscribe. You can support us. We really appreciate that when people go there and support us. You can also find more of our content on our new mobile app. You can find it in the iOS and Android app store.
Just search for Camp Geo. You'll see our little symbol there. You can download that there you can find Camp Geo, our conversational textbook, audio book for the geosciences. And, uh, you can download content now there and look at images and and learn via audio discussions with us.
And also you [00:58:30] can purchase access to our Yellowstone geology guide and more stuff coming at you pretty soon on that platform. So go there, download the Camp Geo app and head to our website. as always send us an email, planetgeocastatgmail. com. Hit us up with any questions. We love getting those.
Chris Bolhuis: Cheers.
