San Marcos students won the Frank Arnott Award at PDAC 2021
San Marcos students won the Frank Arnott Award at PDAC 2021
In total there were 25 participating teams from Canada, the United States, Australia, and others.
The Inca Team, made up of Geological, Mining, Metallurgical, and Geographical Engineering students from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, obtained first place in an important international geoscience competition.
They won the Frank Arnott Award – Next Generation Explorers Award (NGEA) and $ 5,000. The ceremony was held virtually at the PDAC 2021 (Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada) annual convention in Toronto, the world’s most important international event for the mining industry.
Second place went to the UWA team from the University of Western Australia and third place went to the CSM Exploration Initiative team from the Camborne School of Mines (UK).
The San Marcos web portal reported that “Inca Team” carried out its research and presentation work on the Yukon Plateau (Canada) dataset on a basis of commitment and sustainability with the community and the environment.
“Inspired by the cultural traditions of the Incas, applying the Ayllu and Ayni concepts (reciprocity or mutualism among people of the Andean mountain communities) throughout the process, thus developing a series of exploration targets supported by robust modeling that includes conventional methods, fuzzy superposition, and application of machine learning through the use of a complex set of geological, geochemical, remote sensing and geophysics mega data” the institution specified.
The “Inca Team” is mentored by Professor J. Alberto Torres Guerra, and is led by Víctor Torres Pacheco, a former student from San Marcos and current master’s student at the University of Tasmania.
Congratulations to Saúl Romero Enríquez, Yaldri Bravo Meza, and Luis Herrera Pinedo, undergraduate students from the Faculty of Geological, Mining, Metallurgical, and Geographical Engineering. Also to Sylvie Littledale, master’s student at Brigham Young University; and master’s students Juan Carlos Bazán Sotomayor and Orlando Bazán Santa Cruz.
The purpose of this contest is to provide earth science students with relevant learning experiences that can boost the minerals industry in the near future.
Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3P59kwhHfY describing the work of The Inca Team.