Northern Lights chief geologist Artmont dies
Northern Lights chief geologist Artmont dies
2022-09-06 11:06 ET - News Release
Mr. Rick Timcke reports
NEWS RELEASE FOR GARY'S PASSING DATED TUESDAY 6 SEPT
Northern Lights Resources Corp.'s chief geologist, Gary Artmont, has suddenly passed away. Mr. Artmont was a world-renowned exploration geologist with over 40 years of experience in projects across six continents. He graduated with an honours BSc degree in geology from University of Waterloo in 1975, and began his career with Union Carbide searching for tungsten, uranium, and industrial metals throughout Western and Northern Canada, the United States and Brazil. Subsequently, Mr. Artmont worked with Rio Tinto where he was instrumental in defining Vulcan Sedex style base metal mineralization in the Selywn basin of the Yukon.
During the 1980s Mr. Artmont turned his focus to Australia and Southeast Asia where, for Kennecott, he developed reconnaissance programs for tungsten and gold mineralization in Western Australia and New Zealand, as well as completing the early-stage exploration of the Lihir Island gold deposit.
He had extensive experience in Indonesia where he acted as the on-site manager for the Mt Muro gold project in central Kalimantan defining over 1.3 million ounces of gold, as well as the discovery of other gold and diamond deposits in south Kalimantan. From 1989 to 1995, Mr. Artmont was chief geologist for PT Freeport Indonesia where he managed over 120,000 metres of diamond drilling which led to the discovery of the eight-million-ounce Wabu gold deposit, as well as the first detailed geochemical survey and mapping over the Erstberg mine area that culminated in the discovery of the Grasberg deposit, one of the largest gold deposits in the world. During this period, Mr. Artmont also managed Freeport's exploration activities in Mexico.
In addition to the above, Mr. Artmont had extensive experience working in project generation in China, Mongolia, Russia, Eastern Europe and South America.
During his overall career, Mr. Artmont worked in over 15 countries and conducted site visits to over 150 operating mines at locations throughout the world.
Northern Lights chief executive officer, Jason Bahnsen, commented: "Today we have lost a great geologist, dear friend, and a key adviser for Northern Lights and the industry as a whole. During his tenure with Northern Lights, Gary led the exploration of NLR's Medicine Springs project in Nevada leading to the establishment of the joint venture with Reyna Silver, as well as the acquisition and exploration of the Secret Pass gold project in Arizona. His sage advice and positive attitude will be sorely missed. We pass our deepest condolences to his family during this difficult time."