Gravity Concentrators

I met up with my old colleague Del Codd yesterday at cricket, and he was reminiscing about his time at Renison Tin in Tasmania. He mentioned the Kelsey jigs there, and we wondered if anyone still uses these- I have not heard of their mention for sometime.

Also Reichert Cones- they were very poular in the late 70s and 80s. Are they still manufactured or used?

Comments would be welcome.

Congratulations Tim

A very well deserved award has been made by the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining to Tim-Napier Munn, former director of the JKMRC in Australia.

I have known Tim for over 20 years, and have collaborated with him on conferences, special issues of Minerals Engineering and more recently on the 7th edition of my book Mineral Processing Technology.

Apart from being one of the brightest guys in the minerals industry, Tim also has a great sense of humour and fun. The photo shows him and his wife Georgie at the memorable African Night at the 2003 IMPC in Cape Town. Also in the picture is Don McKee, his predecessor as Director of the JKMRC.

Next year is Australia's turn for the IMPC, in Brisbane, and Tim would have my vote for the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Flotation '09, Cape Town - final call for papers

The beautiful Vineyard Hotel at Newlands, Cape Town, is once again the setting for MEI's biennial flotation conference. If you would like to present a paper at Flotation '09 abstracts should be submitted no later than the end of this month. Papers presented at the conference will be peer-reviewed after the event, with a view to publication in a special issue of Minerals Engineering.

After the success of Flotation '07, which attracted nearly 200 delegates, we are expecting a good turn-out again this year. Eleven exhibition booths will be available in the conference area, and three have already been booked, so it is not too early to register!

The conference dinner this year should be a memorable event, at Spier Wine Estate, near Stellenbosch.

Falmouth at its best

Only another 2 weeks to Physical Separation '09, and Falmouth is in full bloom - there is no better place than Cornwall when the sun shines- 25C today.

It's not too late to register!

Commodities and mining shares soar

The dollar slumped in foreign exchange markets yesterday, while the price of oil and base metals reached skywards as a fever of speculation gripped commodity markets. The celebration extended to shares with investors rushing to buy mining stocks.

A sign that recovery is just around the corner?

Congratulations Dr. Megan Becker

I have just received this email from Prof. Cyril O'Connor, Dean of Engineering at University of Cape Town:

It is with enormous pleasure that I can inform you that our colleague Megan Becker is now Dr Megan Becker having just last week received the news that she has successfully completed her PhD through the University of Pretoria where she was supervised by the eminent process mineralogist, Professor Johan de Villiers with Dee (Bradshaw) as her co-supervisor. Completing a PhD full time is in itself always a major achievement but doing so while carrying other important loads deserves very special accolades! This achievement by Megan is not only great for her but also for the CMR given the ever-increasing role which process mineralogy is playing in all of our research projects.

Well done Megan - you join an illustrious group of past and present CMR PhD graduates who also did it while on the job so to speak - not least of these being Dave (Deglon), Aubrey (Mainza) and Dee (Bradshaw).