Volcanic Hazards, Critical Minerals, and Geology for an Uncertain Future by Dr. Joe Biasi

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As the world’s population grows and as countries continue to develop, their need for greater resources and their exposure to natural hazards increases. In part 1 of this talk I’ll cover a major advancement in volcano monitoring that can reduce monitoring costs by up to 4000x. This technique uses measurements of earth’s magnetic field, which are altered by nearby magma. By continually measuring the magnetic field at volcanoes, the movement of magma below the surface can be detected and the signs of an impending eruption can be relayed to authorities. The main advantage of magnetic measurements is that they can be done at dramatically lower costs than traditional techniques, allowing low-income countries with high volcanic hazards to install large monitoring networks for the first time.
In part 2 I’ll talk about my research in Wyoming, which focuses on deposits of critical minerals. These elements (mostly metals) are necessary for modern life or national security, but are often difficult to obtain. This includes lithium, cobalt, rare-earth-elements, platinum, etc. My lab group’s activities are designed to prepare students for careers in this field, which is projected to grow significantly in the next decade. I’ll discuss my numerous strategies to prepare students, including one-of-a-kind courses and fieldwork experiences, all here in Wyoming.
My focus is on economic geology, and I run the Mineral Exploration and Deposit Analysis Lab (MEDAL). I use a mixture of field, laboratory, and computational studies to understand a wide variety of ore deposit types. I’m not a specialist, so I use combinations of paleomagnetism, petrology, mineralogy, and geophysical techniques to do this work. Beyond ore deposits, I also have projects in volcanology, tectonics, structural geology, and much more.