MadMechanic

Professor Ian Plimer is Australia’s best-known geologist. He is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, where he was Professor and Head of Earth Sciences (1991-2005) after serving at the University of Newcastle (1985-1991) as Professor and Head of Geology. He was Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide (2006-2012) and in 1991 was also German Research Foundation Professor of Ore Deposits at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München (Germany). He was on the staff of the University of New England, the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University. He has published more than 120 scientific papers on geology and was one of the trinity of editors for the five-volume Encyclopedia of Geology. Professor Plimer spent much of his life in the rough and tumble of the zinc-lead-silver mining town of Broken Hill where an interdisciplinary scientific knowledge intertwined with a healthy dose of scepticism and pragmatism are necessary. He is Patron of Lifeline Broken Hill and the Broken Hill Geocentre. He worked for North Broken Hill Ltd, was a consultant to many major mining companies and has been a director of numerous exploration public companies listed in London, Toronto and Sydney. In his post-university career he is proudly a director of a number various unlisted private Hancock Prospecting companies. A new Broken Hill mineral, plimerite, was named in recognition of his contribution to Broken Hill geology. Ironically, plimerite is green and soft. It fractures unevenly, is brittle and insoluble in alcohol. A ground-hunting rainforest spider Austrotengella plimeri from the Tweed Range (NSW) has been named in his honour because of his “provocative contributions to issues of climate change”. The author would like to think that Austrotengella plimeri is poisonous.