Medals and Awards

Sarah-Jane Barnes is a professor emerita, Université du Québec Chicoutimi (UQAC). Her main research interests are in ore deposits associated with mafic and ultramafic rocks and integrating field observations, petrography, and geochemistry to understand how they form. On finding that good quality geochemical analyses of ore deposits and host rocks were not generally available at the beginning of her career, Barnes together with her graduate students founded a laboratory specializing in the developing techniques for analysis of ore deposit materials (LabMaTer) at UQAC. This laboratory is now used by researchers from around the world. She has trained 45 postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Barnes earned her B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Witwatersrand, her M.Sc. from the University of Cape Town, and her Ph.D. (1983) from the University of Toronto, with Tony Naldrett as supervisor, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Geological Survey of Norway (1984-1986). Her professional employment includes work as a geologist for the Geological Survey of Namibia, as a lecturer at the University of Toronto, and as research associate and professor at UQAC. She was named the Canada Research Chair at UQAC (2004–2017) and holds a number of awards, including Awards Fellow of the Royal Society Canada (2020), Duncan Derry Medal Geological Association of Canada (GAC) (2020), Jean Descarreaux Prize (2016), SEG Distinguished Lecturer (2014), Mineralogical Association Canada Past-Presidents Medal (2007), and Gross Medal GAC (1994).

Hilke Dalstra initiated his career in geoscience at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. After military service, he relocated to Australia to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Western Australia, focusing on Archaean gold deposits. Following a brief stint in the gold industry as a consultant, Hilke joined Hamersley Iron in 1995, commencing what would prove to be a rewarding and long-lasting association with Rio Tinto. He played a key role in the team tasked with exploring for hematite deposits, initially in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and later expanding the search globally. This work led him to undertake field work in many and various locations around the world, including, for example, Guinea (Simandou), India, and Southern Africa. In 2000 he joined Rio Tinto Exploration (currently as a principal geologist) where he continued his generative work in iron ore and broadened his expertise to include base and precious metals and lately the critical metals. His efforts played a crucial role in the discovery of several iron deposits and, more recently, the Winu and Ngapakarra copper-gold deposits. Hilke’s main interests in geology are applying tectonic concepts, structural and ore deposit geology, and geophysical interpretation to target generation, as well as sharing and transferring the knowledge obtained with experience to the next generations of exploration geologists.

Xuyang Meng is a professor at the China University of Geosciences (Beijing, CUGB) in China. He began his Ph.D. program at the University of Alberta and earned his Ph.D. degree from Laurentian University in 2021, followed by a one-year postdoctoral study at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). His research focuses on the metallogeny of magmatic-hydrothermal deposits within the context of Earth’s evolution. Xuyang has particular interests in exploring the temporal and spatial distribution of magmatic-hydrothermal mineral deposits throughout Earth’s history. To pursue this objective, he has investigated magmatic-hydrothermal Cu ± Au ± Fe deposits worldwide, such as those along the Circum-Pacific plate margin and the Tethyan orogenic belt as well as in intracontinental settings. Most of these deposits formed over a broad range of ages from the Archean to the Miocene and are located in China, Canada, Namibia, Serbia, and South America. He is skilled in using various geologic and geochemical tools, such as field mapping, oxybarometry, thermobarometry, electron microprobe analysis, laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, secondary ion mass spectrometry, and micro-X-ray absorption near-edge structure (µ-XANES). In 2022, Xuyang received the Governor General Award of Canada (2022), followed by the Youth Role Model Award in the Haidian district (Beijing, 2024) and the Youth “May Fourth” Award at CUGB (2024).