I am currently Head of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum (NHM) working in ores research since 1991. Prior to joining the NHM I had worked in the mining industry and this experience has framed my approach of developing research in close collaboration with industry to provide solutions to questions and challenges. The bulk of my current research is focused on metals critical for our modern economy in earth systems, which includes cobalt and lithium. Other research interests include unravelling the links between the Earth’s geodynamic history and mineral deposit formation and the associations of minerals and biota in the deep ocean. I am committed to diversity and equality in all my roles and am committed to training the next generation of geoscientists. I have successfully supervised more than 20 PhD students and post-docs and I currently teach undergraduate ore deposits classes at Imperial College.
Robin Armstrong is an Economic Geologist with over 20 years of experience, and the current lead of the Natural History Museum’s Mining Consultancy Group. His expertise covers a diverse range of mineral systems and commodities across the range of geological scales from mineralogy to regional metallogeny. The study of Lithium resources has been an area of interest for the past 10 years and he has had key roles in the EC funded FAME project and UKRI funded Li4UK projects.
Dr Alla Dolgopolova has more than 15 years of experience in economic geology, igneous petrology and environmental geochemistry. After completing her PhD at the Royal School of Mines (Imperial College London, U.K.) she has been working on projects related to mineral deposit studies, origin of ore deposits and ore processing. Alla has been involved in NHM projects in Central Asia, Mongolia, China and Russia. Research areas of interest include isotope mapping as tool in exploration targeting, geodynamics and metallogeny of Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), and Li-bearing rare metal granite and pegmatite deposits of European Hercynides, Transbaikalia, Tienshan and Kazakhstan
Prof. Reimar Seltmann (PhD 1987 Bergakademie Freiberg) has almost 40 years of experience in anatomic studies of ore-bearing granitic systems of Transeurasian metallogenic belts, with special interest in fluid-saturation textures and magmatic-hydrothermal transition processes of Li-F granite-ore systems. His mineral deposits research covers a wide range from economic geology, igneous petrology, processing mineralogy and geochemistry of mineralized felsic systems, with regional focus on geodynamic and metallogenic processes in ore districts of collisional belts (published case studies on Li-bearing rare-metal granites and pegmatites of European Variscides, Uralides-Altaids and Appalachians). Reimar has co-/led NHM lithium research in several projects: IGCP/INTAS, EC H2020 FAME and UKRI Li4UK.
Francesco Putzolu (Scopus Author ID: 57193772077) is a post-doc researcher at the Natural History Museum. Prior to joining the LiFT consortium, he obtained his PhD at the University of Naples “Federico II” (Italy), where he had been studying the Co enrichment in laterite systems by using several geochemical, minero-petrographic and statistical methods. Other research interests encompass the behaviour of critical metals in bauxite, Zn-nonsulphide and laterite ores, as well as the genesis of clay-endowed Ni and Zn deposits. In the frame of the LiFT project, he will be studying the mineralogical and geochemical footprints of Li in several volcano-sedimentary systems. The main purpose of his research is defining genetic models of the studied deposits, which will allow aiding the mineral exploration and reaching a better understanding of the Li behaviour during the ore-forming processes in the upper crustal environment.