What's your job about?
Currently I work in the Kalgoorlie Superpit within the Grade Control Team. Grade control encompasses all the geologists on site that work specifically within the mine. We control the gold grades!
The superpit is a gold operation. Within grade control, we rotate through different roles managing the way we mine our gold deposit. One week you can be running the pit working alongside the mining team making sure the Ore (Gold) is dug out correctly. The next week you can be managing the drill rigs which drill our grade control holes giving us our gold results. From there we also model our ore blocks using programs such as Vulcan, Datamine and MP3. Everyday can be completely different.
We make sure we get every bit of gold out of the ground using economical and stables mining methods.
What's your background?
I was born in Perth but grew up in Margaret River (country WA). I moved to Perth when I was 18 to start Uni. I completed a month of Geology at uni and found I didn’t like it. I left uni and completed a Diploma in Beauty Therapy and worked within a salon for just under a year. The pay wasn’t that flash and I knew I could do a lot better for myself. I moved back into hospitality as a Supervisor in a few popular Perth pubs while heading back to uni to start a degree in Metallurgy.
2 years in I found out metallurgy wasn’t for me and switched back to Geology which has been the best decision of my life. After 5 years of study I finally graduated in mid-2016 with a Geology Degree and a lot of background knowledge of processing and metallurgy.
While still at uni I was accepted into the Newmont Vacation Program for the summer at their Boddington Operation. I absolutely loved it and I knew Mine Geology was on the cards for my career.
From there I got a job as an Exploration Graduate at a small gold mine called Darlot in the middle of WA and flew to site 2 days after completing my last exam! I was there for 4 months and then got offered the Graduate role with Newmont at their Tanami Operation in the NT. I’ve completed 1yr at Tanami and now finishing off my 2nd year at their KCGM (Super pit) operation.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Of course! Anyone can study geology and each country would have their own universities/ degrees. The most helpful characteristic needed to work in this role is excellent communication skills with an awesome attitude and great motivation. You deal with a lot of different personalities and different backgrounds on a daily basis and being able to relate in a professional manner can be extremely beneficial.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
We get to find the gold! Tanami had a lot of free gold so it was very visible in certain parts of the mine. In Kalgoorlie I’m working in the super pit – cant get cooler than that! The superpit also is full of the old underground workings so navigating around the pit floor can be tricky avoiding all the voids that are barricaded off with certain levels of tape work.
What are the limitations of your job?
In the whole scheme of things we are team based and it is OUR responsibility that we get every inch of gold out of the pit and it gets to the mill having a certain grade. This is validated throughout all the grade control roles from graduate to superintendent.
We work a 9 day on 5 day off roster and complete a 10hr day. We are also residential so we have to live in Kalgoorlie while on shift. This roster is very demanding for the 9 days but we get a good 5 day rest and with that time off it’s easier to travel. When working in the pit we have to get ontop of the blasted shots to mark out our ore boundaries which when in hot conditions can be effort intensive.
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