The Society of Economic Geologists Awards for 2014 R. A. F. Penrose Gold Medal for 2014 Citation of James M. Franklin

Abstract

Mr. President, SEG members, and friends: Jim Franklin’s career has encompassed all of the criteria applicable to the terms of reference for the Penrose Gold Medal with his outstanding contributions to scientific research, to the profession, and to the development of mineral resources. All three were achieved through a full career in economic geology as practiced in academia, government, and industry. Although his scientific achievements are wide ranging and easily documented, I believe his singular technical contribution has been the establishment of the link between the geological attributes of volcanic-associated massive sulfide deposits, as preserved in the rock record ranging back to the Archean, with hydrothermal processes in modern oceanic environments. His penchant for documentation of key features associated with massive sulfide deposits, particularly things geochemical, dates back to his employment as a student at the Geological Survey of Canada with the late S.M. Roscoe, who was one of the earliest proponents of a syngenetic origin for deposits at Noranda and Mattagami Lake. Jim later put this experience to work in documenting the geology of the newly discovered Mattabi deposit at Sturgeon Lake in northern Ontario in the early 1970s, showing a geological setting and style of alteration that differed in many respects from the more familiar examples at Noranda and Kuroko. Similar work elsewhere at the time was focused on the site of metal deposition but Jim’s work at Sturgeon Lake pointed the way to two broader and more critical aspects: the presence of a …