Peter C. Lightfoot

Dr. Peter C. Lightfoot, P.Geo. has spent 20 years as a geologist with Inco and Vale. Dr. Lightfoot served as Chief Geologist with Vale Base Metals; Vale is one of the four largest mining companies in the world, where he led exploration teams and oversaw geologic evaluation in Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, Finland, China, India, Australia, Brazil, Angola, South Africa, and the U.S.

Dr. Lightfoot was a member of a team that made major discoveries in every one of the cobalt-producing Ni-Cu sulfide deposits in Canada. He was responsible for exploration at Voisey’s Bay, an important Ni-Cu-Co producing mine in Labrador; at Sudbury, the largest Ni-Cu-Co producing deposit in North America, Dr. Lightfoot helped make new discoveries at Victor and Totten; at Thompson, Peter was part of a team that discovered the North Hangingwall Deposit; and at Carajas, a highly productive transtensional rift in Para State, Brasil, Dr. Lightfoot worked with a team of geologists who discovered the Jaguar iron oxide nickel deposit.

In 2017, Dr. Lightfoot was appointed as the Hutchinson Visiting Industry Professor at the University of Western Ontario. In 2016, he published Nickel Sulfide Ores and Impact Melts, the first comprehensive textbook on the nickel-copper-cobalt-precious metal ore deposits of the Sudbury Igneous Complex. Dr. Lightfoot received his B.A. in Earth Sciences from Oxford in 1980, his M.Sc. from the University of Toronto in 1982, and his Ph.D. from the Open University (U.K.) in 1985. He completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Toronto and undertook extensive research on the geology and geochemistry of the Noril’sk ore deposits during his tenure as an Adjunct Professor. Dr Lightfoot is now a consultant to the mining industry through his company.