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franco.pirajno39@gmail.com

​​Franco  Pirajno

In April 2015,CharterEx geologist Franco Pirajno made contact through the website.

He’d stumbled on the CE website by chance, and his contact details are: franco.pirajno39@gmail.com

Franco arrived at CE in December 1963 – from Italy.
Chief Geologists at CE during his time were Pete Freeman, Des Horscroft and Fred Cornwall – and Franco spent time in Angola at Manhinga, near the village of Calunda (Alto Zambezi), with Maurice Bergmann.

Franco recalls working with Tony and Peter Moore, Steve Landsberg, Brian King, Dai James, Bob Lyell and Jim Cooye (and others too numerous to mention).

Franco left CE in 1967 on transfer to Harare (Salisbury) and in 1972 transferred with Anglo to Australia and later New Zealand.

After almost 20 years with Anglo, he changed exploration course to enter Academia, where he continues today at the University of West Australia’s Centre for Exploration Targeting where he is Adjunct Prof.

His CV on the Uni website provides interesting details covering his (illustrious, let it be noted) career:

Franco Pirajno, senior geoscientist in the Minerals Geoscience Resources section of the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA), has considerable experience in tectonics, ore deposit geology and mineral exploration in Europe, southern Africa, South East Asia, New Zealand, the southwest Pacific, China, Greenland, southern and eastern Siberia, and Australia.
Prior to joining the GSWA in 1993, Franco worked for the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa Ltd, as Exploration Geologist, following a spell as a post-doctoral research scientist at the Vesuvius Volcano Observatory. Whilst with Anglo American, he participated and supervised exploration projects in many parts of southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the South West Pacific islands and Indonesia.

Promoted to Exploration Manager of the Company’s activities in the South West Pacific until 1983, when appointed to the Chair of Economic Geology at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
As Director of MSc courses at Rhodes University, Franco was involved in both academic and administrative aspects. Research activity was mainly on precious metals and base metals mineral deposits in the southern African subcontinent. The MSc courses in Exploration Geology and in Economic Geology (course + research) were very intensive and with emphasis on field-based studies of ore deposits, their genesis and tectonic settings. This afforded the unique opportunity of examining and studying a large number and range of mineral systems in the southern African subcontinent.

In the last 20 years Franco Pirajno has worked extensively in Western Australia’s Proterozoic terranes and was instrumental in the discovery of a new large igneous province in Australia.

Visiting Professor at Peking University in 2003 and China University of Geosciences, Beijing in 2004. Distinguished Foreign Professor at Hefei University of Technology, September-October 2012.

Appointed Foreign Editor for the GeoScience Frontiers journal of Peking University and China University of Geosciences in 2004;  Chairperson of SEG Fellowship Admissions Committee for 2009-2011;

Associate Editor 2008-2014 for the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences; on the Editorial Board of Russian Geology and Geophysics and Lithos; Editor-in-Chief of Ore Geology Reviews in March 2012; Series Editor of Solid Earth Sciences (Springer) in November 2012; Member of the Steering Committee of the Large Igneous Provinces Working Group.
He has supervised and/or reviewed 57 MSc and PhD theses, and current honorary appointments include:

Adjunct Professor at Centre for Exploration Targeting (University of Western Australia).

Research Associate at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Honorary Research Fellow at CERCAMS (Centre for Russian and Central EurAsian Mineral Studies), Natural History Museum, London.

Nominated highest cited author by Thomson-Reuter for 2011 in Economic Geology at University of Western Australia.