Geo Technician at Tharisa

Role Context

Compliance, Risk and Safety

• Conduct plan task observation and risk assessments per shift cycle/rotation, ensuring adherence to mining safety standards and practices.
• Conduct inspections to identify and report/correct substandard and unsafe conditions, ensuring that drilling areas are set up and safely demarcated.
• All equipment’s and company assets used in the operational mining productions must be cleaned and left in orderly proper conditions.

 Data Management

• Develop and maintain the mine grade control and exploration relational database, by downloading, capturing and validating all field data, XRF and Stockpile grades into SABLE software and PowerBI.
• Conduct gap analysis on the information received from the Database Geologist to confirm all relevant data is captured, supporting an up-to-date database.
• Store data in respective branches in SABLE database, i.e. model coding tables to achieve quality data management.

Geological Procedures and Sample Processing

• Contribute to the assessment of geological conditions, by collecting, examining, and identifying geological samples to support the geological gathering of samples and processing at sampling plant/area on a mine site (elementary sampling).
• Conduct geological research by collecting materials, cataloguing findings, and setting up experiments to provide insight on geological conditions.
• Manage and maintain housekeeping of the sample preparation plant/area by liaising with mining personnel to agree on the implementation of geological mining instructions related to pit mining production and ore quality control to ensure procedures, SOPs and work instructions are followed.
• Conduct geological sampling preparation, splitting, compositing and tagging on RC, TH, TFS and Stockpile samples, to ensure quality control of geological pit sampling.
• Timeously sample submittal for processing and laboratory assays according to the requirement.
• Discard samples remains, including sample plastics, from the geology sampling process area and the laboratory, including on skip bins into the disposing area (stockpiles) according to procedure and per the Database Geologist’s instructions, to support site rehabilitation.
• Dispatch geological samples to the geology logging area for processing and laboratory for assays according to the daily requirement.
• Receive collected drilled RC holes and samples and the corresponding drill chip tray at the geology sample processing plant/area, to enable sample sorting in preparation for logging.
• Draft and submit daily, weekly and monthly geological reports of data collected, examined and recorded to support management decision making.

Quality Assurance and Quality Control

• Implement the developed protocols for assessing ore quality and batches CRM insertion, ensuring compliance with established Quality Assurance and Quality Control standards.
• Identify deviations and recommend corrective actions, when necessary, to enable the geology team to proactively address potential issues impacting production quality.  
• Collaborate with operational teams to implement corrective actions and optimise processes to maintain high-quality ore output.

Resource Management

• Provide input into required changes in resources (financial or non-financial) to enable the achievement of team and/or own objectives.
• Determine resource needs of the team and/or own area of work to achieve business outcomes.
• Request and allocate required assets and/or resources for the fulfilment of work objectives to guarantee quality outputs.
• Monitor the use of assets and resources within the team and own area of responsibility, to ensure assets and resources are consistently and appropriately utilised and managed.
• Provide staff with day-to-day direction and tasks aligned with Departmental procedures, to enable the usage of less resources more efficiently.
• Always execute / follow through/ implement and adherence at all times of all geologist’s/management ad hoc instructions as per requirements.

Stakeholder Relations

• Communicate with all relevant Departments on issues of the area of speciality. Liaise across the relevant Departments by engaging with the appropriate stakeholders to ensure all stakeholders remain abreast of Departmental objectives, any potential derailers are appropriately managed and duplication of work is avoided.
• Communicate with internal and/or external stakeholders, where required, to achieve work objectives and to maintain relationships

Requirements

Qualifications:

• Grade 12 (NQF4).
• BSc or BTech (NQF7) in Mining/Geology.

Certifications:

• SABLE or Geological Database Certificate is an added advantage.

Job specific experience:

• Minimum of between three to five (3-5) years of experience in the mining environment (successful completion of a Geology internship).
• One to two (1-2) years of experience in an open pit mine would be advantageous  .
• SABLE or geological database experience.
• Computer literate.
• Valid Driving Licence.