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INTERNATIONAL MINING HALL OF FAME
Sandy Gray, Technical Director and Co-Founder
of Gekko Systems
recovery rate benchmarks not met elsewhere in
the mining industry.
Equipment invented by Gray has established
the following new principles:
n Innovative with smaller environmental
footprint
n Significantly greater energy efficiencies and
cost reductions
n Modularity – Gekko equipment can be
dismantled and angled to fit into previously
inaccessible or economically unfeasible sites
n Transportability - the equipment can be
collapsed into containers and economically
transported, providing long-term advantage
to clients
n High adaptability engineered and tailor-made
for a specific site
n Low capital cost and lower operating costs
n Fully automated and controlled via PLC
systems with remote connectivity
n Gekko equipment can be constructed, precommissioned and calibrated before
transportation, enabling rapid start-up,
thereby increasing significant financial
returns.
Gray’s contribution has been to demonstrate
not only the advantages of gravity separation as
a viable means of mineral capture, but also
when coupled with state-of-the-art, fine
crushing technology, it can provide significant
economic and energy efficient benefits to
customers.
Since 1996, he has led mineral concentration
into the 21st century by creating a range of
economical, modular and environmentally
responsible mineral processing equipment. Gray
is an innovator of note, displaying an innovative
blend of vision and product development for the
world’s mineral processors.
Luke Danielson, the Environmental
Management and Stewardship inductee
10 International Mining | MAY 2016
(sponsored by MWH), is a
lawyer, researcher and
professor who has
directed substantial
research programs in the
fields of sustainable
development and mining
and minerals policy.
Perhaps his greatest
international achievement
was as the director of the
Mining Minerals and
Sustainable Development
(MMSD) Project for the
International Institute for
Environment and
Development (IIED). He
managed the largest research project ever
undertaken on the social, environmental, and
economic influence of mining worldwide. The
two year global program of research and public
consultation produced an actionable plan for
“the mining industry to be seen as a positive
contributor and partner in local development;” it
became the original work plan upon which the
International Council on Mining and Metals
(ICMM) was founded.
Other achievements include a successful
mediation process for the Pitch uranium mine
which brought great value to miners and the
state and led to his appointment to the Mine
Land Reclamation Board – Colorado’s mine
permitting agency. Working on the
environmental failure at Summitville mine,
resulted in a rigorous, yet fair, legal process for
mine permitting that became Colorado’s mining
code and a blueprint for mining laws in the US
and other countries. It was the first step
towards re-establishing trust in mining after a
truly devastating environmental failure.
Luke Danielson whose great work lead to the
foundation of the International Council on
Mining and Metals (ICMM) – induction
sponsored by MWH
Dr Wolfgang Baum is inducted in the
Exploration category. Baum has been a pioneer
in process mineralogy, in fact he is a world
recognised process mineralogist with over 40
years of industrial experience in the mining
industry. He was formerly Director of the Ore
Characterisation and Process Mineralogy
Laboratory at the FLSmidth Minerals Research
Test Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. He now runs
his own consulting firm called Ore & Plant
Mineralogy LLC.
Baum pioneered the first commercial
installation of QEMSCAN technology in the USA,
operating five QEMSCAN systems in Arizona,
and two at a mine site in Peru. He was the
leader of a design and engineering team for the
installation of the two of the most advanced
robotics preparation and analytical laboratories
in the USA. He is an innovator in the integration
of mineralogical analyses into geo-metallurgical
Dr Wolfgang Baum inducted in Exploration, a
pioneer in process mineralogy
programs for several base metal mining
operations in the USA and overseas.
In geo-metallurgy and advanced automated
ore profiling Baum conceptualised, designed
and constructed the world’s first Automated
XRD-NIR Lab with a daily capacity of 500
samples for quantitative XRD-NIR mineralogy (a
$6.5 million project). He designed and installed
a small modular Robotics Sample Preparation
System to support daily blasthole XRD/XRF/NIR
analysis (the first of its kind in the industry). He
implemented routine NIR use in operations for
ore routing (5 NIR systems).
The Metallurgy inductee, Dr Michael Virnig is
currently Global SX Technology Consultant at
BASF Mining Solutions. His primary contribution
in the advancement of the SX process was the
development of various LIX® products. He
coordinated several production and
manufacturing processes from the lab bench to
commercial scale and directed research projects
which account for the development of an
extensive range of oxime extractants for the