Senior Mineral Resources Geologist
British Geological Survey
Eimear is a senior mineral resources geologist at the British Geological Survey. She joined in 2013 and previous to this Eimear worked as an exploration geologist for First Quantum Minerals Ltd and Mkango Resources. She recently completed a PhD at Camborne School of Mines, where she also obtained her MSc in Mining Geology in 2011, her undergraduate degree was in Geology at the University of Edinburgh. At BGS Eimear researches primary and alternative resources of rare earth elements internationally, and tungsten-bismuth and antimony mineralisation in South-west England. She is the BGS task lead for UK critical minerals research and is passionate about what she calls ‘full value mining’, or getting everything possible out of a mineral deposit.
The United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC)
The United Nations Framework Classification (UNFC) is an international reporting mechanism which can be used to classify mineral resources and reserves. It serves as complementary tool to CRIRSCO templates for reporting, and bridging documents have been developed to translate between CRIRSCO and UNFC. A major strength of the UNFC is that it can include all possible definitions of ‘resources’ – from operating projects to theoretical models of what might be in the earth's crust at continental scales. This flexibility makes it attractive to organisations such as geological surveys, who hold very large amounts of historical data of various vintages and standards; data which are very important and valuable but could not be defined using CRIRSCO definitions. This can be of considerable benefit in understanding regional and national stocks of mineral resources for strategic planning over long timescales. In this way it supports the development and implementation of appropriate policies to overcome barriers to project development. It has been adopted by the EU for its Strategic Projects to act as a mechanism to both understand capacity across Europe for different stages of project development and compare multiple metrics across different project types.
