Maxwell Porter

Maxwell Porter is a first-year MSc student in Geological Sciences at the Mineral Deposit Research Unit (MDRU) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), working under the supervision of Professor Shaun Barker and Dr. Farhad Bouzari. He earned his BSc in Exploration Geology from Cardiff University, where he examined analytical methods for assessing soil geochemistry for gold exploration in Wales under Professor Iain McDonald. Maxwell has previously worked as an Exploration Geologist at Brixton Metals and as a Student Geologist at Anglo American, which focused on exploring for porphyry copper deposits in Canada. He currently volunteers as the Chair of the Society of Economic Geologists Student Committee and previously served as the President of the UBC Society of Economic Geology Chapter from 2023 to 2024. 

His research focuses on characterizing the host rocks, alteration processes, and timescales of magmatism in the Camp Creek Late Cretaceous calc-alkalic Cu-Au-(Mo) porphyry deposit located within the Stikine terrane in northern British Columbia, in collaboration with Brixton Metals. The first year of studies has focused on classifying the mineralogy of different intrusive phases and their cross-cutting relationships at Camp Creek. Four drill holes were relogged and sampled to capture additional information on mineralogy, alteration, veining and cross-cutting relationships. Ongoing research integrates petrography, whole-rock geochemical analysis, μXRF element mapping, shortwave infrared studies, U-Pb geochronology, and whole-rock geochemistry. The project aims to provide insights into potential geochemical vectors for discovering blind porphyry Cu-Au-(Mo) mineralization, which is crucial for sourcing critical metals for the green energy transition.