Ann Petts

Anna graduated from the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2002 with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Geology, and commenced a Ph.D. at the University of Adelaide in 2004 with support from the Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Environment and Mineral Exploration (CRCLEME) with Dr. Steve Hill and Lisa Worrall as her supervisors. Anna received her Ph.D. in 2009 – the final title of her research project was ‘Termitaria as regolith landscape attributes and sampling media in northern Australia’.

Before commencing her Ph.D. studies, Anna worked as an exploration geologist with Iluka Resources (2003) in their Murray Basin Mineral Sands project; from 2008 to 2016 Anna was first an exploration geologist and then project geologist for Flinders Diamonds/Flinders Mines, primarily the Pilbara Iron Ore Project (mostly channel iron and detrital iron deposits plus hematite ore within basement) in the Hamersley Iron Province of Western Australia, plus also VHMS-style Ni and Cu exploration in the Windimurra Igneous Complex in Central Western Australia, plus also has experience in diamond exploration in South Australia’s Nackara Arc and Flinders Ranges. Anna has also worked as a contract geologist with Euro Exploration Services on projects including Prominent Hill’s IOCG exploration (then Minotaur) and later near mine exploration logging. More recently, her work with the Geological Survey of South Australia has included collaborating with CSIRO to undertake regional UltraFine+ soil and biogeochemical sampling, hydrogeological sampling and also with MinEx CRC to provide report-quality portable XRF downhole geochemistry in the National Drilling Initiative Delamerian and Northern Gawler projects.

Throughout her career, Anna has primarily been interested in the practical application of geochemical techniques to improve exploration outcomes in the field. Anna has designed and led portable XRF programs in the field and at the core library, and hopes to continue to promote sustainable and low-impact surface geochemical methods for better understanding the distribution of metals in the regolith and cover.