CRC LEME HONORARY FELLOWS
LEME Honorary Fellowships are awarded by the Board in recognition of outstanding
contributions to the development and promotion of Regolith Science
The Awards are in the form of embossed and engraved jarrah plaques. Sixteen Awards have been presented thus far by Mr George Savell, Board Chair.
Nine Awards were made at LEME Wind-Up Dinners held in Canberra (25 June), Adelaide (27 June) and Perth (3 July).
- Dr Charles Butt
- Dr Steve Hill
- Mr John Keeling
- Dr Ken Lawrie
- Dr Ken McQueen
- Dr Colin Pain
- Dr Steve Rogers
- Mr Keith Scott
- Ms Lisa Worrall
DR CHARLES R M BUTT
Charles has played a significant role in the development of the Australian mineral exploration industry in the past three decades. He has over 35 years research experience as an exploration geochemist, mainly in developing procedures for gold, nickel, PGE and base metal exploration in deeply weathered terrains, and in the geology of secondary mineral deposits, particularly nickel laterites, supergene gold and calcrete uranium. His recent research has been into the composition, crystallography and micro-structure of particulate and nugget gold.
He has led many industry funded research projects in Australia, and undertaken consultancies and delivered courses and field workshops to industry, university extension and government in Australia, Canada, S. Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire and Brazil.
Without doubt Charles is one of the Founding Fathers of geological and geochemical exploration methods in deeply weathered terrain. His international reputation in the field is evidence of the high esteem he is held in by both fellow scientists and industry.
In 2002 the West Australian Division of the Geological Society of Australia awarded Charles the Gibb Maitland Medal. His other career awards have included in the 1995 International Gold Medal from the Association of Exploration Geochemists (with Ray Smith) and the 1997 Science and Technology Award from the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies. He was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2004 and a CSIRO Fellow in 2007.
Charles has authored over 250 papers, edited monographs and reports.
Many ingredients go into exploration success. Research scientists such as Charles make a substantial contribution by providing new ideas and exploration methods and by instilling vital industry confidence in innovative exploration methodologies.
Charles was a critical part of the group that developed the concept and presented the successful proposal for LEME 1 to the CRC Panel in 1994.
Charles provided outstanding leadership in LEME Program 1 between 1995-2002. This was the largest program in LEME 1 with 60% of total funds it included 3 AMIRA projects, the Astro diamond project, activities in Yilgarn, Pilbara, Gawler, Broken Hill, Tanami, Mt Isa & Drummond Basin. Charles was also the Deputy Director, LEME1 betwen1995-2001.
In 2000 Charles was part of the team that wrote the proposal for LEME 2 (especially Programs 1 & 2)
Charles was critical to the development and delivery of two outstanding LEME 2 outputs:
He led the development of the Business case for the Yilgarn Laterite Atlas, in support of principal funding from CSIRO and MERIWA, which has stimulated significant exploration activity in the region; and was also Project leader for the LEME Thematic volume “Regolith expression of Australian ore systems” which is still in great demand 3 years after its publication.
Charles is well known for his mentoring of young scientists, a great example is the work he initiated in gold nugget research with the junior scientist Dr Rob Hough. This has recently resulted in a paper in the July 2008 volume of the highly regarded journal Geology, (Hough et al. Naturally occurring gold nanoparticles and nanoplates )
In 2002 CSIRO Exploration and Mining and CRC LEME initiated the award of the Butt-Smith Medal ‘ For outstanding and sustained contribution linking regolith science to exploration in Australia ' in honour of two great Australian exploration geoscientists, Charles and Ray Smith.
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