The 9th Nordic Exploration Award in 2018 goes to Erkki Vanhanen for:
· Relentlessly and with Finnish sisu played a key role in the discovery and development of the Rompas gold mineralisation in Finnish Lapland.
· Actively contributed to increasing the appreciation by Finnish and EU officials of the significance of mining in Lapland.
· Developing new innovative ways to drill and sample a mineral deposit in a Natura 2000 area.
Photo: Henry Lundholm.
Dr Erkki Vanhanen graduated with a Master of Science in Geology and Mineralogy in 1981 and completed his PhD in Geology and Mineralogy in 2001. Both degrees at the University of Oulu. Dr Vanhanen's professional experience has primarily been in gold and uranium exploration for 25 years including 15 years generating, implementing and managing exploration projects in the field. He spent 3 years with Areva Resources Finland Oy and AREVA NC as Technical Director and exploration geologist and 23 years with the Geological Survey as Finland, with a final role as Division Manager, Bedrock and Raw Materials. Dr. Vanhanen served as Mawson's Exploration Manager in Scandinavia and chief geologist from 2010 until his retirement in 2018.
Mawson Oy is a fully-owned subsidiary of Mawson Resources Limited, a Canadian company listed in Toronto stock exchange. Mawson’s flagship, Rompas-Rajapalot gold-cobalt exploration area is demonstrably one of the few such projects in the world. Dr Erkki Vanhanen has been the key person in initially finding and further exploring this area.
The survey results from the area have delineated an exceptional geological potential. The gold-cobalt concentrations found in the area typically exceed the threshold concentrations considered economically viable by multiple, often hundreds of times.
Mawson has invested in its exploration operations in the Rompas-Rajapalot area between 2010 and 2018 around EUR 17 million. Almost the entire sum of investments has been retained by the economic areas of Ylitornio and Rovaniemi and the rest of Finland.
Mawson has since the very start of the Rompas project in 2011 been engaged in a continuous Kafkaesque fight with several Finnish authorities and NGOs about the right to explore in the Rompas-Rajapalot areas in spite of permits repeatedly being issued and confirmed by the Finnish Mining Authority and administrative courts. The outcome of this protracted fight is not yet certain.
Nordic Exploration Award Committee
Stockholm November 2018