Working for 3PXS is pure learning and investigative fun. Getting hands on with real world geochemical datasets across multiple commodities, geological environments, and projects at varying stages of exploration is extremely valuable for us young, developing geo’s and is proving to be a real treat.
We recently joined Simon and the 3PXS team In May. Already, we’ve had the chance to work on several different projects, but we kicked things off with Carlin related systems in Nevada, each of us focussing on our own individual dataset and taking the opportunity to learn as much as possible from Simon’s geochemical data bank. Once we’ve reviewed the data and started summarising our ‘interps’ we share what chemical relationships, prospectivity, vectoring potential and limitations we’ve picked out of our datasets.
These discussions are always eye opening. We of course all approach the data differently and being able to see each other’s interpretations and workflows leaves you with further ideas to investigate in your own project and improve your analysis, not only that but you get to learn about other areas and systems that are sometimes completely different to your current focus. Having Simon’s huge breadth of knowledge to draw on at this point is invaluable and enlightening.
Another part of the role as a Junior Geochemist is the validation and organisation of datasets which is proving to be a fantastic source of practical experience. When looking at all these datasets and databases you start to see the most practical ways the field data should be organised and the metadata that should be included within a database.
Having information such as soil classifications and landform for soils and underlying geological units, relative chronologies and importantly accurate and unique location data including depths and elevations. It allows you to pick out so much more from a standard survey. Additionally, compiling modern and legacy data in projects allows us to compare between sample methods, element suits and analytical techniques.
Being able to produce a lithogeochemical map and alteration fingerprint with a Au+50, four acid suite with the modern survey Vs the relative inferences of lithogeochem and alteration you can glean from a Au+30 Aqua Regia survey, drives home the importance of sampling and analytical methods. This then builds our understanding of what we’d want to do if we were the ones on the front end in the field organising and conducting the field programmes. How to maximise return from the data collected? How should that data be structured so it’s practical to use?
In short, we’ve been with the team a month and we’ve already learnt so much and look forward to learning a lot more.
