Wed
22 Jan 2020Congratulations Mitchell (Mitch) Kerr for a successfully defended PhD thesis!
All at the Harquail School of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University send congratulations to Dr. Mitchell Kerr in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for having defended with great success his PhD thesis in the field of Mineral Deposits and Precambrian Geology at Laurentian University. Mitchell’s thesis was entitled “Gold upgrading processes, fluid evolution, and chemical precipitation mechanisms in Archean greenstone belts and Paleozoic metasediment-hosted orogenic gold systems”.
Originally from Brampton, Ontario, Mitch graduated with a HBSc in Chemistry from the University of Toronto in 2010, and received an MScApp in Geology from Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. During his graduate career, Mitch applied the chemical signals stored in rocks to better understanding the genesis of a variety of ore systems. His MScApp thesis, “Gas chromatography to characterize fluid inclusion hydrocarbons in the footwall of the Sudbury Igneous Complex”, was published in the foremost journal of ore deposits Economic Geology. For this PhD, the first of his 3 papers was already published in the prestigious journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (doi:10.1016/j.gca.2018.08.030) with his 2nd thesis paper is now under review there. The 3rd paper of his thesis was recently submitted to Journal of Geochemical Exploration. The defence committee consisted of Dr. Jacob J. Hanley (St. Mary’s University), who also supervised his MSc research, with the addition of the Harquail School’s Drs. Daniel J. Kontak and Douglas K. Tinkham. The committee was thoroughly impressed with the high quality of the science Mitch produced and the manner in which he was able to defend his work. The quality and excellence of Mitch’s work, being at the forefront of ore-deposit geology, was recognized earlier by him receiving the Atlantic Geoscience Society Sandra Barr award in 2019 for giving the best oral presentation (PhD level) at its annual Colloquium in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Mitch is appreciative of the following funding sources which supported his PhD research:
- NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship D (CGS D)
- Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources Mineral Incentive Program Research Grant
- Finnigan Award for Northern Research from 2018
- Laurentian University Conference Travel Grant
- Mineralogical Association of Canada Travel Grant
Mitch is currently working as Technician, Laboratory Analyst, and Part-time Faculty at the Geology Department at St. Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. We wish Mitchell a highly successful career with a continuation of his work challenging the boundaries of geoscience research.
