Protecting communities and preserving environments
Working alongside mining companies all over the world, Professor Wolfgang Maier of Cardiff University has helped to prevent the relocation of local communities and protect culturally sensitive land, all whilst providing enormous cost savings.
Based at Cardiff University's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Professor Maier is an expert in magmatic ore deposits – an accumulation of minerals that exist within igneous rocks which can be mined for the metals that are concentrated within them.
For the last 15 years, Professor Maier and a team of geologists at the university have been working with numerous mining companies to help map where these ore deposits might be on Earth.
More importantly, their work is also used to predict where ore deposits are less likely to occur or would be less profitable to mine, resulting in a significant reduction in exploratory drilling and thus protecting local communities and environments near mines.