Esther Bordet, PhD student, University of British Columbia

Biography:

I completed my undergraduate studies in geology at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France. During my last year of B.Sc., I conducted a one-year exchange program at the Laval University in Quebec City. There, I discovered the extensive opportunities that exist in Canada for geologists in the mining and petroleum industries, and this motivated me in pursuing my education and professional career in Canada. Then I completed a Master’s degree in structural geology at the University of Quebec (INRS-ETE), investigating the structures and tectonic evolution of Anticosti Island, Quebec.

As a student, I was involved in several summer field projects and internships. I was successively a field assistant for graduate students in the Pyrenean foreland basin of northern Spain, an intern at the Institut Français du Pétrole in Paris, and a field assistant and laboratory technician for a hydrocarbon maturation project in the Quebec Appalachians. After I completed my Master’s degree in Quebec, I moved to Vancouver and worked for two years as a Junior Resource Geologist at Golder Associates. I was involved in resource estimation projects as well as geotechnical assessments taking place at different stages of the mining cycle.
I am currently conducting a PhD program with the Mineral Deposit Research Unit at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Craig Hart.

Project:

My thesis project is located in the Nechako basin of south-central British Columbia. The Jurassic to Tertiary sedimentary rocks that form the Nechako basin have demonstrated high petroleum prospectivity. However, these rocks have been subjected to widespread Eocene magmatic, thermal and structural events that have extensively modified and complicated the basin architecture. In addition, the considerable thicknesses of volcanic strata now mask the hydrocarbon host rocks, resulting in a challenging interpretation of the seismic data. The same volcanic rocks that are a barrier to petroleum exploration host several epithermal deposits, however most of them are not easily accessible because of the extensive glacial drift cover. The objective of my project is to provide a regional structural framework and evolution of the Nechako basin during the Eocene to allow better identification of pre‐Eocene hydrocarbon bearing features, and to help constrain the metallogenic impact and potential of the Eocene volcanic rocks. Overall, the outcome of this study will be applicable to both hydrocarbon and mineral exploration industries in British Columbia, by allowing improved reconstruction of the basin architecture and better assessments of resource potential.