Luiz Felipe Salim Amaral

MSc graduate
Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

I completed my undergraduate degree in Geology at Federal University of Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil in 2013. I had the opportunity to work in remote areas of Brazil and around the Quadrilátero Ferrífero (QF) region (Minas Gerais/ Brazil), which is a global pole for iron and gold mining. Geological mapping, sampling process, trench and drillhole description are part of my activities. My current interests are economic geology, metallogeny, which includes petrology, mineralogy, geochemistry and structural geology from the region.

My passion for ore deposits, metallogeny and geochemistry led to the formation of my M.Sc. project. I worked with Sarah-Jane Barnes studying the distribution of the trace elements among base-metal sulfides of Voisey’s Bay Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposit in Labrador. This project was amazing and gave me the opportunity to learn how to work with LA-ICP-MS and to learn different ways to work with and interpret geochemical data. The aim of this project was to understand the distribution of the trace elements such as Os, Ir, Ru, Rh, Pt, Pd, Bi, As, Te and Bi among different base-metal sulfides from the Ovoid ore body in Voisey’s Bay and also to contribute to the development of new exploration tool, in order to find new magmatic deposits under covered by the glacial till in Canada.

I am grateful to MAGNET for funding part of my studies and providing excellent opportunities such as the workshops. It was a great opportunity to meet different people from all over Canada and exchange experiences from different domains such as environmental geology and ore deposit geology. In addition, the MAGNET program funded my attendance at the PDAC conference which represented a great opportunity for me to meet people and be in touch with the industry. Now that I have graduated, I am working for an exploration company based in Ottawa, Ontario. I will always remember the amazing people that I met in this program and the stunning geologic sites that we had the opportunity to visit during the workshops. Thank you very much MAGNET for everything!

Last updated April 2017