Award marks exceptional leadership in mining exploration

Leading exploration geologist and University of Queensland Adjunct Professor Daniel Wood has received the 2013 Thayer Lindsley award.

Mr Wood was recognised for his inspiring leadership, geologic insight, commercial acumen and mineral exploration that led to several significant and world-class discoveries, including the large Cadia cluster of gold-copper ore bodies in NSW which are being mined by Newcrest Mining Limited.

Throughout his career he has led exploration teams responsible for numerous discoveries of mineral deposits in a variety of geologic settings, with an aggregate gross value in excess of $100 billion.

Mr Wood was Director of the UQ Sustainable Minerals Institute’s (SMI) WH Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre and is now an Advisory Board member.

Director of the WH Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre Professor Margaretha Scott congratulated Mr Wood on his award.

“Dan continues to make significant impact as he turns his attention to a broader challenge facing not only the minerals mining industry but the global community – that of resource replenishment,” she said.

“He continues to be a leader and visionary, concentrating on enhancing research capability in Australia and developing a better knowledge of deposits that can be applied to the issue of ‘risk management’.

“UQ’s WH Bryan Mining Geology Research Centre is extremely fortunate to have Dan on its advisory board, as an Adjunct Professor and to have had him stand in as the Centre’s Director in 2010.”

The Thayer Lindsley award, honouring the memory of one of Canada’s greatest mine finders, recognises an individual or a team of explorationists credited with a recent significant mineral discovery anywhere in the world.

Mr Wood studied a Bachelor of Science (Hons) and Master of Science at UQ and began his career in the mining industry in 1967 with global resources company BHP Billiton.

From the mid-1990s, he led Newcrest Mining Limited’s worldwide search for gold and gold-copper ore bodies as Executive General Manager Exploration, and was a senior member of the company’s executive management group.

Mr Wood was jointly awarded the Joe Harms Medal by the Geological Society of Australia for discovering the Cadia gold-copper deposits in NSW.

He is also the 2013 recipient of the SME's Robert M. Dreyer Award and is a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists in the U.S.

Mr Wood retired from mineral exploration in late 2008 after 24 years with BHP Billiton and almost 18 years with Newcrest – leading teams exploring for a range of mineral resources in Australia, SE Asia/SW Pacific and the Americas.

During his career, the teams he led produced coal, gold, gold-copper and copper-molybdenum discoveries in Australia, Indonesia and Peru.

Media: Monique Lewis, 07 3346 4044 or monique.lewis@uq.edu.au