Anne Thompson: A Geologist's Career at the Edge of Certainty

Anne Thompson is a geologist, mineralogist, and self-described snake that sheds its skin. Over four decades she has worked as an exploration field geologist in Australia and the Southwest Pacific, built and sold an applied mineralogy consulting company, helped produce the Atlas of Alteration, and served on the council of the Society of Economic Geologists. She also hosts her own podcast, Discovery to Recovery. What makes Anne compelling is her refusal to take the comfortable position - from her roots as an environmental activist in the 1970s, through a pivotal moment in Crested Butte where she realised the mine was not the problem, to working first-hand during the Bre-X scandal and witnessing the regulatory reform it eventually forced. This episode also covers women in geoscience, the evolution of spectroscopy in the field, and what Anne sees as the sector's most urgent challenge: training the next generation of economic geologists for the world as it is today, not as it was forty years ago. To hear more from Anne at the 2024 Responsible Raw Materials conference, where she speaks on ‘The Unrecognized Risk Of Parachute (Geo)Science’ visit: https://responsiblerawmaterials.com/post/anne-thompson-2024/  Produced by Critical Productions. Learn more at responsiblerawmaterials.com