Chairholders
Profile
Eldad Haber
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences/Mathematics
The University of British Columbia
Chair title
NSERC/ Barrick/Xstrata/Teck/Newmont/Vale Industrial Research Chair in Computational Geoscience
Chair program
Industrial Research Chairs program
Role
Associate Chairholder since 2010
Summary
The chair area of research is computational geoscience, with applications to electromagnetic imaging and optimal experimental design.
Electromagnetic methods have been used by the industry for the discovery of minerals, oil, underground contamination and, recently, to monitor CO2. A key component in using the technology is the ability to simulate electromagnetic fields in highly homogeneous media and, given electromagnetic measurements, produce a 3D image of the earth that it is consistent with the data. The work proposed by the chair is the development of modern simulation and optimization algorithms and codes to produce a flexible and accurate representation of electromagnetic fields in the earth and the corresponding conductivity.
The key activities of the chair are:
- Develop 3D codes for electromagnetic simulation and imaging
- Develop new methodologies for experimental design in electromagnetics
- Develop new ways to assimilate and fuse electromagnetic data and other geophysical data. The chair's background is computational science with a PhD in geophysics and applied math from the University of British Columbia.
The chair has worked for Schlumberger and for the last seven years has been at Emory University mathematics and computer science department as a computational science faculty member. For the last 15 years, the chair was involved in generating modeling and simulation codes to mining companies worldwide.
Mining and mining exploration represents a large part of the Canadian economy. Improving mining exploration by making it more economical and environmentally friendly is an important economical target. Furthermore, the generation of codes will take the industry to the next technological phase and will require highly qualified personnel that will bring more "high-tech" jobs to the mining industry.
The partners are major mining and exploration companies, not only in Canada but also worldwide, that share similar methodologies for electromagnetic modeling and imaging.
The codes and algorithms developed in this research can improve the accuracy of mineral detection making exploration more profitable and with a smaller environmental footprint.
Partners
- Vale Inco
- Teck Resources Limited
- Newmont Mining Corporation of Canada Limited
- Xstrata Nickel Canada
- Barrick Gold Corp.
Contact information
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences/Mathematics
The University of British Columbia
6339 Stores Road
Vancouver, British Columbia
V6T 1Z4
Tel.: 604-822-4525
Fax: 604-822-9068
Email: haber@math.ubc.ca
Website:
http://www.math.ubc.ca/~haber
