Gems of Geoscience

Mikaela Miller, Geoscientist-in-Training

I was born and raised in Saskatoon and grew up in a unique situation – with no siblings, a single father and a loving dog named Max. I was a shy kid who loved being outside, playing sports, and reading.

I completed all 12 years of elementary and high school in French immersion. I decided to stick close to home for university and attended the University of Saskatchewan from 2014 to 2018, graduating with a Bachelor of Science Honors Degree in Geology and a minor in Geomatics.

I have wanted to be a geologist since I was 11 years old. I still remember the day in Grade 6 when our class first started the rocks and minerals unit in science class. After that course, I was immediately hooked and ran home after school to begin what I considered my own geological research. As a kid, I made countless homemade textbooks that included facts on my favourite minerals, rocks, and volcanoes (which I still own to this day).

This passion for geoscience was fuelled through the numerous road trips with my dad to see different rock formations, mountains and volcanoes all over Canada and the United States. By the end of each trip, my dad and I would have collected a car full of interesting and unique rocks and bring them home to display in either the house or the backyard.

I aspired to be a volcanologist as my obsession with volcanoes just kept growing through the years. However, once I started university in 2014 and began speaking to professors and industry professionals about a career path in volcanology, that career path seemed more unattainable than I had previously expected.

In my final year of my undergraduate degree, I took the mineral deposits class of Dr. Kevin Ansdell, P.Geo., which sparked my newfound interest in mineral exploration. From then on, I decided I was more interested in a career in industry doing mineral exploration.  Although I put my volcanology dreams on hiatus, I continue to fuel my obsession for volcanoes through travel, lots of reading, and following a great number of volcano pages on Instagram.

I have always enjoyed school and learning new things, so, once I was studying something I was passionate about, it made it that much more enjoyable. I appreciated the classes where we received hands-on experience and got to learn outside of a typical classroom setting, specifically, the labs and the two field schools I participated in Zortman, Mont. and Flin Flon, Man.

When I was a student, jobs were few and far between, so, when I got hired as a Geological Field Assistant with Appia Energy Corp. to work on their Alces Lake project in the summer of 2018, I was ecstatic. Even though I found myself up in northern Saskatchewan for three months straight with the worst bugs I’ve ever encountered, it did not diminish my passion for geology.

Afterwards, I went on to work for Orano Canada on the Getty-Russell project as a Geologist-in-Training from January to April in 2019. After my contract ended there, I found myself at Axiom Exploration Group in May 2019 and I am currently still employed there.

Since starting with Axiom, I have had the opportunity to work in countless commodities and deposit types such as Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS)-hosted copper and zinc, orogenic and sediment-hosted gold, and lithium-bearing pegmatites.

I believe starting to work at Axiom in 2019 was one of the greatest opportunities that could have happened to me. I get to work with individuals who are just as passionate and hard working as I am. I also get the opportunity and freedom to manage projects I am interested in while accessing the insight of all the experienced geoscientists around me.

I learn about all aspects of geoscience here at Axiom through our other three divisions; Geophysics and Remote Sensing, Environment, and Energy Services, which makes working here a unique experience. The team atmosphere is nothing like any other place I’ve worked, and I look forward to seeing where we go in the future.

I am forever grateful for all the amazing experiences that I’ve had throughout my career in geology. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many exceptional people, both at university and in the workplace. I love the fact that I get to travel all over the country (and get paid to do it!). Not everyone is able to have a career that allows them to stay active, fly in helicopters and float planes, and experience wild and remote places that few others have seen before the way that we do in mineral exploration.

I have many favourite rocks in my collection, but I think currently my favourite is this piece of pegmatite that I found while traversing on a property close to the Tanco mine in southeastern Manitoba.

The journey to bring this rock home consisted of an hour-long boat ride (one way) and a three-kilometre traverse just to reach the showing. We had been admiring photos and descriptions of the Silverleaf pegmatite for weeks, so we had high expectations and it did not disappoint. We spent upwards of two hours at this outcrop and blast pit admiring the huge spodumene crystals hosted in a fine-grained lepidolite groundmass.

I had never seen a rock like this before, so, once I came across it – after digging through a blast pile comparable to Mount Everest – I knew I had to take it back with me, no matter the size or weight. We ended up taking so many personal samples that we had to prop our backpacks up on a higher outcrop just to get them on.

From all the samples I collected on that trip, this one is my favourite because of the unique botryoidal or “ball-peen” lepidolite hosted within the white cleavelandite (a platy variety of albite). It now sits at my desk at work for all to admire.

A sample of pegmatite that Mikaela Miller brought back from southeastern Manitoba.