Rachel Kim, MSc Student, University of British Columbia

Biography:

Rachel is currently a Master’s student at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Craig Hart, with her project focus being the characterization of the Kasalka Group volcanics in north-central British Columbia. This is a collaborative project with the Mineral Deposit Research Unit and Geoscience BC’s TREK project.

She graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in 2014 with a B. Sc in Geological Engineering. During her undergraduate degree, she was fortunate enough to hold two summer student assistant positions with the Yukon Geological Survey, which allowed me to build my regional mapping skills and field work experience in various parts of the Yukon. She was also able to apply her interests in geological sciences and natural resources on her work — her final undergraduate engineering design project was focused on outlining an advanced exploration program, resource estimation and preliminary mine design for a carbonatite-hosted niobium deposit in northern Ontario. She also completed an honours thesis with the Yukon Geological Survey, researching Eocene intrusive suites of the Dezadeash Range in southwest Yukon.

Reaching completion of her first year of graduate studies, she has presented a poster at the 2014 Roundup and Cordilleran Tectonics Workshop conferences on her research to date. She is spending the summer of 2015 working as part of the bedrock geology team’s second field season for the TREK project in north-central BC.

Project: Characterization and Timing Constraints of the Late Cretaceous Kasalka Group in North-Central British Columbia

My project focus is on the Late Cretaceous Kasalka Group volcanics in north-central British Columbia, working with the TREK (Targeting Resources for Exploration and Knowledge) project. Originally defined in the Kasalka Ranges along the eastern margin of the Coast Belt, the Kasalka Group further east in the northern Interior Plateau is poorly understood due to limited exposure of complex bedrock geology. Using geochronology, geochemistry and regional mapping, this study will provide detailed characterization and stratigraphic constraint on Late Cretaceous volcanism and its ties to current and prospective mineral exploration in the region, most notably New Gold’s Blackwater project.