How to Find Copper — Dr. Tim Ireland, First Quantum

PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast · Jul 30, 2026 · 53m · transcript

There's a photo on Tim Ireland's Google Scholar profile of a toddler standing on the floor of an open pit gold mine in Australia's Northern Territory, wearing a hard hat and — because it was the early 1980s — flip flops. That toddler is now the Principal Geologist for Exploration at **First Quantum Minerals**, one of the world's major copper producers, and in this episode Jesse sits down with him to talk about how mineral exploration actually works.

Tim grew up with two geologist fathers, but the path in wasn't as direct as it sounds. He took a gap year as a field technician and mostly hated…