Dr. Wayne Goodfellow is a member of the first group of recipients to have been awarded an O’Brien post-Graduate Fellowship in 1975. He had just completed a study of the world-class Brunswick No. 12 Zn-Pb-Cu ore deposit near Bathurst, N.B., as part of a Ph.D. thesis at the University of New Brunswick when the O’Brien Foundation launched a major program to fund post-graduate research. The timing was opportune but the fact he was from the Miramichi region, the home of Honourable J. Leonard O'Brien and his wife Kathleen O'Brien, made this new fellowship program seem almost providential. Since he grew up on a small farm outside of Newcastle, he was naturally well aware of the O’Brien Family and the major role that they had played in the development of a lumber industry in the area and in the political and social life of the Miramichi in particular and New Brunswick in general.
After being awarded an O’Brien Fellowship, which was renewal up to three years, he continued his research at the University of New Brunswick with a focus on the development and testing of new and effective methods of exploring for mineral deposits concealed at depth in the Earth’s crust. However, as it turned out, he was an O’Brien Fellow for only one year. In 1976, he was offered the position of Research Scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in Ottawa where he has had a long career that spanned more than 35 years. His research interests are fairly broad and include the genesis seafloor hydrothermal sulphide deposits (Sedex, VMS), the evolution of oceans and atmospheres through time, the cause and consequences of giant meteorite impacts, and the development of deeply penetrating geochemical exploration methods. This research has taken him around the world and to most parts of Canada including the far north, and has facilitated collaboration with international and multidisciplinary teams of scientists. For example, research along the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the western coast of Canada allowed him to dive to the ocean floor in the Alvin submersible to observe active vents and spectacular chemosynthetic biological communities, and to participate in the drilling of the oceanic crust under the international Ocean Drilling Program. Perhaps one of the most exciting research projects was the search for the cause of mass biological extinctions in the geological record, such as the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction event about 65 million years ago when dinosaurs were wiped out by a giant meteorite impacting the Yucatan Peninsula in northern Mexico.
During his career, Wayne has authored over 150 refereed papers and was editor of a number of books including: Mineral Deposits of Canada volume published by the Geological Association of Canada (GAC) in 2007; Sediment-hosted Lead-Zinc Sulphide Deposits (2004); and Economic Geology Monograph 11 on VMS deposits of the Bathurst Mining Camp (2003). He has been the leader of many research projects including the GSC’s EXTECH-II multidisciplinary project on VMS and the Deep Search/TGI3 project on the development of improved methods of detecting deeply buried mineral deposits. As Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa, Wayne supervised or co-supervised 10 Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and 9 post-doctoral fellows. He is the recipient of the Duncan Derry Medal, the highest award of the GAC in the area of economic geology. This past year, he was a Canadian Institute of Mining Distinguished Lecturer and he is currently working on a chapter entitled “Forging a Nation” to be published in a book entitled Four Billion Years and Counting: Canada's Geological Heritage.
On the personal side, Wayne is married to Marianne Goodfellow who graduated with a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in classics at the University of New Brunswick and the University of Ottawa, respectively. She currently teaches classical archaeology at Carleton University and has just returned from Europe where she led a group of students on a field trip to classical archeological sites and museums. They have three children – Sebastian, Nigel and Mizpah - and are the proud owners of the old homestead on the Miramichi River where Wayne grew up that they are slowly restoring. Their plan is to spend the summers at this “farm” and of course make regular trips to Fredericton to visit old friends and the wonderful Farmer’s Market.
Wayne says that he “will always be very grateful for the support given to me by The O’Brien Foundation which came at a critical stage in the development of my career, from graduate student to Research Scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada. There are few fellowships that bridge the transition from academia to the real world of research, making the O’Brien Fellowships almost unique in supporting post-graduates from New Brunswick.”
Wayne D. Goodfellow, Ph.D.
Emeritus Research Scientist
Geological Survey of Canada
601 Booth Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E8
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