Innovative Applications of portable X-ray diffraction (pXRD) and X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) for base metals and gold exploration

Todd Houlahan graduated from the University of Newcastle, Australia in 1993 with a Bachelor of Applied Science (Environmental) majoring in soils and hydrology. He then worked for 7 years as a contaminated land consultant in Australia and the UK with various companies before being introduced to handheld XRF in 2000 while remediating a Pb contaminated site in Sydney. From 2000-2004, he worked in Australia and used handheld XRF as a consultant, a contractor and in sales capacities on large number and wide variety of Geochem projects. From 2004-2008 Todd was on the metaphorical coal face of the mass introduction of modern x-ray tube based units to the exploration and mining sector supporting distributors and customers in the EMEA region. Since 2008, Todd has led the International Mining Group in a global capacity at Olympus and is now based out of Hertfordshire in the UK. For the past 15 years, he has dedicated his career to portable XRF applications in the minerals industry. His passion is best practice application of the technology, customer training and unique applications.

David Cohen is a geologist and exploration geochemist. He is President of the UNSW Academic Board, President of the Australian Geoscience Council and a Past-President and recipient of the silver medal of the Association of Applied Geochemists, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Geosciences and the Royal Society of New South Wales. He was head of the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences from 2009 to 2016. He has 30 years of experience in exploration and environmental geochemistry research in Australia, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. Research area include field methods for exploration and environmental geochemistry, geochemical mapping and multivariate data mining. He lectures in environmental and exploration geochemistry, economic geology and supervises a number of postgraduate research students in geochemistry. He was the 2013 Australasian Institute for Mining and Metallurgy visiting lecturer to New Zealand. He has been involved in various major environmental consultancies, including the contaminant assessment of the Olympic Village Site and regional geochemical mapping for exploration and environmental purposes in NSW and Cyprus. He has been a technical consultant to a number of industrial companies and government departments, including expert opinion services for various legal cases relating to geology and geochemistry.