Process Mineralogy '18 gets underway

Another beautiful day in Cape Town, and this morning MEI's Jon Wills opened the conference, and welcomed the 84 delegates from 16 countries, thanking our sponsors Zeiss, ThermoFisher Scientific, Bruker, Petrolab and our media partners International Mining and Mining Review Journal Zambia.

MEI's consultant Megan Becker was last week named as one of the top most influential women in mining of 2018.  Deservedly so, as she is passionate about minerals and teaching. Her research, which addresses mineralogy right through the value chain, prompted the South African National Research Foundation to name her a “young researcher with the potential to become a future leader in her field.”  This morning she followed Jon's introduction by speaking movingly of her great friend and mentor, Prof Dee Bradshaw, who was well known to all in the process mineralogy field, and who died in June after a long battle with cancer.

Megan (right) and Dee with me and Norman Lotter at Process Mineralogy '17

I have known Alan Butcher for many years, since he was a geology lecturer at Camborne School of Mines in the early 1990s. He then moved on to Australia and CSIRO, where he was heavily involved with QEM-SEM. During his time as Chief Scientific Officer with Intellection he was involved in the organisation of MEI's Automated Mineralogy conferences in Brisbane. After the demise of Intellection he was with FEI for a few years, and he is now Professor of Geomaterials and Applied Mineralogy at the Geological Survey of Finland. So it was good to have Alan present the first keynote lecture at the conference "When Scientists and Engineers Talk – Lessons from the Oil Industry and Applications to Mining".

Alan with MEI consultant Megan Becker

 Following Alan's keynote there were 14 high class presentations today from Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, South Africa and UK, but also plenty of time in the long lunch and coffee breaks to meet the exhibitors, view the posters and to welcome new members to the MEI club. This included 5 researchers from the Botswana International University of Science and Technology, attending and presenting papers at an MEI Conference for the first time.

Our Botswanan delegates

First lunch break in the exhibition area

After a long day it was good to enjoy the evening sunshine for the first of our sundowners in the hotel gardens.

Twitter @barrywills