Bryan Smith
Bryan was born in April 1939 and is still actively involved in the exploration industry. He obtained a B. Agric Science, and PhD in geochemistry at Melbourne Uni. He is a member of GSA, AusIMM, AIG and the Association of Exploration Geochemists.
From 1967, Bryan worked five years as a Research Scientist with CSIRO Soils Division in Adelaide on clay mineral properties in small earth dams and two years as a Geochemist with Amax Exploration based in Kalgoorlie working in the discovery team of the original NiS deposits at Forrestania. He also worked on other exploration projects in the Eastern Goldfields including Wiluna, exploring mainly for NiS and U.
Bryan worked twelve years with WMC as a Senior Geochemist mainly in Kalgoorlie and later in Perth exploring for NiS, Cu/Zn, U, Co and lateritic Ni. He also established resources of lateritic Ni at Bulong for WMC to be used to inactivate the sulphurous acid produced when sulphur dioxide is scrubbed from the smelter stack and at the same time recover nickel during the leaching process.
Bryan also worked three years as a Senior Geologist/Geochemist with CSR Minerals exploring mainly for Au in the Eastern Goldfields and central NSW and also for gold, tin and copper/zinc in the Northern Territory. He spent eight years as General Manager-Exploration for Aztec Mining defining the gold deposit at the Bounty Mine at Forrestania and the Cu/Zn/Ag mineralization at Golden Grove.
From 1995 Bryan has worked as a consulting Geologist/Geochemist based in Perth for over 30 different companies on a broad range different deposits mainly in Western Australia. He was involved with the report to the WA Government with Ross Fardon on the future funding of the GSWA, also for Outokumpu on the potential for metallurgical processing of nickel laterite deposits in Indonesia and New Guinea. He has worked for Reed Resources (now Neometals) in defining the vanadium and titanium resources at Barrambie and later on defining the lithium resources in pegmatites at Mt. Marion for Neometals, Mineral Resources and Gangfeng. Currently Bryan is working for the Kalgoorlie Project, which is privately funded by David Reed exploring for gold within the Town Site of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. So far they have drilled nine deep diamond drill holes.
In 2016, Bryan was awarded the W.R. Browne medal by the Geological Society of Australia “for distinguished contributions to the geological sciences in Australia” having worked on a number of senior representative committees over many years.