Ore Deposits Hub (ODH) provides accessible education on ore deposit geoscience and a global network between academic geoscientists and industry professionals. Since March 2020, we have helped to unite the academic and industry geologists who work adjacently, but often separately, within the mineral resources sector. We believe that by offering free, weekly seminars, we can create a diverse platform to reach a wide range of people, with no prohibitive price wall or travel requirement. We promote gender diversity by aiming for a balanced speaker schedule – giving everyone a voice.
The established quality of ODH talks and discussion has made this a trusted platform for ore deposit research and the leading example of open ore deposits communication.
Tom Belgrano and Alannah Brett founded Ore Deposits Hub in March 2020.
Our Team
Tom Belgrano - Director, Co-founder
Tom Belgrano is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Southampton, UK, currently pinning down the behaviour and enrichment mechanisms of precious and critical metals in mafic-hosted VMS systems. As a UK transplant to New Zealand, he did his undergrad in Wellington, and after an eye-opening summer of mineral exploration in the Yukon, went on to complete a Master’s and PhD at the University of Bern, Switzerland. In March 2020, Tom co-founded Ore Deposits Hub, and now you have the pleasure of hearing from him regularly by email, and as host in the occasional meeting.
Alannah Brett - Director, Co-founder
Alannah Brett is a co-founder of ODH, and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bern. She has roamed the Semail ophiolite in Oman for 5 of the last 6 Januarys, hunting permeable pathways for hydrothermal fluids in the oceanic crust and VMS systems. Alannah shares a creative, enthusiastic, anything is possible attitude with those around her, and tackles geology and life head on, like the rugby leading nation she grew up in, New Zealand. To her, connecting geologists from all outcrops and walks of life, is the digital critical metal driving a diverse, green and sustainable future of our global community.
Aaron Hantsche - Executive Director
Aaron Hantsche is a PhD candidate at the University of Geneva where he studies the evolution of distal Pb-Zn skarn systems, focused on structural mapping, mineral chemistry, and fluid evolution. He believes that geologists have a broader responsibility to provide scientific communication and public education on mineral resources and sustainability. Aaron also writes for Spotlight Mining as a Senior Researcher. Aaron grew up in Texas, but prefers colder weather and whiter precipitation, inspiring him to move to Switzerland in 2016.
Filipa Luz is an Exploration Geologist at Almina in Portugal. She received her PhD from the University of Lisbon, working in the Iberian Pyrite Belt. Her scientific aims are to develop new geochemical exploration techniques and methods, but along side this, she participates enthusiastically in diverse scientific outreach activities for local communities and high schools. She likes to read, walking with her dog, traveling around the world and discovering new cultures.
Wren Bruce - Director
Wren Bruce is currently a Senior Project Geologist with the consulting group Mercator Geological Services, based in Dartmouth, Canada. Since completing her M.Sc. at University of British Columbia, Wren Bruce has worked in the mineral exploration industry on gold, copper, uranium, and kimberlitic deposit projects.
Halleluya-Naantu Ekandjo - Director, Host Coordinator
Halleluya-Naantu Ekandjo is a PhD Candidate with iCRAG at University College Dublin, where she is studying the geochemistry, mineralogy and structures of the Rosh Pinah Zn-Pb Deposit. Halleluya has 5 years of experience exploring for base metals in Namibia, and she obtained her MSc in Economic Geology from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2017. Her quest for adding value to mineral exploration and geometallurgy is amplified by her involvement in EDI and Geoscience communication projects.
Jamie Kelly is a PhD student at the University Of Southampton, who is building upon long standing research on the Zambian Copperbelt under a new NERC-funded grant called CuBes. He will use mineral chemistry in an effort to improve exploration in sediment-hosted Cu basins, while addressing the factors that generate supergiant copper basins such as the Zambian Copperbelt. Jamie is committed to scientific communication and endeavours to share geoscience education with the wider public.
Marta Codeço is a postdoctoral researcher at GFZ Potsdam, Germany, tracking down metal source(s) in the Iberian Pyrite Belt through fluid and melt inclusion studies in host rocks, gangue minerals, and ore. She completed her Ph.D. in Geochemistry at the University of Potsdam in 2019, and has a Master’s degree in Economic Geology from the University of Lisbon. She is passionate about economic geology but also appreciates, videogames, reading, traveling, and spending time with her family.
Chris Voisey - ODH Host
Chris Voisey is an assistant researcher at Monash University, where he obtained his PhD, and a geology consultant at PGN Geoscience. He moved to Australia in 2016 from Newfoundland, Canada, where he completed a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree at Memorial University. Chris’s research now focuses on integrating geochemistry with structural geology to better understand ore genesis and develop applications toward mineral exploration.
Irene del Real - ODH Host
Irene del Real received a degree in Geology from the University of Chile, a MSc degree from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD from Cornell University. With experience in porphyry systems and iron oxide copper gold deposits, she focuses on the genesis and evolution of hydrothermal deposits from a multi-disciplinary approach integrating structure, petrologogy, and geochemistry. Currently, she works in her home country as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Chile, enjoying the perks of the Andes just outside her window.
Carolina Mafra - ODH Host
Carolina Mafra is a research & development engineer at University of Liège (Belgium) excited to start her PhD in Australia. Carolina holds a BSc. in geology from University of Sao Paulo and a MSc in georesources engineering (geometallurgy) from University of Liege, University of Lorraine, and Luleå University of Technology. She is passionate about deposit formation, geochemical exploration and acid mine drainage prediction.
Michael Calder - ODH Host
Michael Calder has conducted Economic Geology research at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and James Cook University, Australia. He specializes in magmatic-hydrothermal deposits and has worked on the world-class Far Southeast porphyry deposit, Philippines, notably on detailed paragenesis of ore and hydrothermal alteration mineralogy. Michael is based in Geneva and is an avid hiker and traveller.
孟博阳 (Boyang Meng) - Youku administrator
孟博阳 (Boyang Meng) is a Master’s student at the Department of Resource Engineering, University of Science and Technology, Beijing (USTB). His research concerns the development of genetic models for a Chinese nephrite deposit. Boyang is the ODH representative in China and administrator of our Youku account.
Yury Klyukin - ODH Host
Yury Klyukin received a PhD degree at Virginia Tech, and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Calgary. His current project focuses on mineralization (scaling) in man-made high-temperature hydrothermal systems, ti understand what controls and how to minimize mineral precipitation. His research interests focus on Economic Geology and Geochemistry of the fluids.
Azam Soltani Dehnavi - ODH Host
Azam’s expertise is in applied mineralogy and geochemistry in petrological, mineral deposits, and environmental research. Her focus is ore-genesis and exploration of critical metals related to hydrothermal-magmatic systems. She has experience working in various geological terrains and micro-geochemical methods.
Simon Hector - ODH Host
Simon Hector is a PhD Student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, crossing the Rhine to promote the French-German friendship. He has worked on Paleoproterozoic orogenic gold deposits of Finland prior to his current study on active seafloor massive sulfide deposits of Kolumbo in Greece. He has been a part of SGA at both Nancy (France) and the Black Forest-Alpine student chapters since 2018. He likes to share stories around a beer or a good meal and work with motivated people to get things moving!
Charles Routleff is PhD student at Cardiff University, where he studies the enigmatic Gokona Au deposit. He is particularly interested in Archean greenstone belts, as they contain cryptic “snapshots” of secularly evolving tectono-magmatic mineralisation processes. He is a passionate promoter of geoscience communication, widening participation, and free access to high quality educational resources. In his spare time, he can usually be found reading, tinkering with tools, or rock climbing.