Exploration workshop brings top geoscience students to Sudbury

Earth science students hand-picked from more than two dozen-post secondary schools across Canada have been spending some time in Sudbury.

They are part of the 11th Student Industry Mineral Exploration Workshop, a two-week long event organized by the Prospectors Developers Association of Canada.

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The workshop is to help show students what careers are available with a background ingeoscience, and include in-class learning and field trips to working mines , Felix Lee, first vice-president of PDAC said.

"At the moment our industry is facing a fairly severe skills shortage and unless we are able to attract and hold on to the people that are coming into the industry we're going to have a hard time filling the needs of the future of this industry," Lee said.

He added it's also meant to help introduce future professionals to the various other options available in the mining profession.

"[Students] have the opportunity to utilize their geology or mining engineering degree in the financial sectors, as well as the legal sector, the regulatory sector," Lee said.

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Lee says the students will visit underground mines in Timmins and Rouyn Noranda this week.

Daniel Baker, a student at University of Alberta in Edmonton, said he was already familiar with sediment, oil and gas, but and applied to SIMEW to learn about Ontario's mineral and gold deposits.

"My experience and passion for geology started when I was young but it's continually growing and evolving even now that I'm here," Baker said.