Dr Simon Dominy

Executive Consultant

Dr Simon Dominy our Executive Consultant and Group Lead of Geometallurgy, is a seasoned mining geologist-engineer with more than 25 years of experience spanning mine operations, consulting, and academia. His expertise covers economic geology, geometallurgy, mine value chain sampling, resource development, Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimation, project studies, mine operations and M&A due diligence. Simon is adept at handling small to medium-sized mining assets and excels in solving complex technical problems with a multi-disciplinary approach, emphasizing cross-disciplinary integration and data sharing throughout the mine value chain.

Specialisations: Simon is highly knowledgeable in various gold mineralization styles, including:

  • Lode-gold/ shear-zone
  • Epithermal
  • Skarn
  • Conglomerate
  • Alluvial deposits

His key expertise lies in evaluating and exploiting coarse gold-bearing/high-nugget effect deposits. He has designed, managed, and reviewed numerous resource development studies, including:

  • Ore/waste characterization studies
  • Optimum sample mass determination and protocol optimization
  • Metallurgical sampling and testwork design
  • Bulk sampling/trial mining program planning and management
  • Pilot plant design and operation
  • Resource/reserve estimation
  • Mine ore/grade control systems
  • Strategic and tactical geometallurgy

 Academic and Professional Contributions: Simon is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Camborne School of Mines (CSM), University of Exeter, UK. He is actively involved in research and MSc teaching. His professional roles include:

  • Member of the Pan European Reporting Standard (PERC) committee
  • Member of the Geological Society of London Professional and Chartership and University Accreditation Committees
  • Member of the IOM3 Applied Earth Sciences Committee
  • Editorial Board Member of the MDPI journals, Minerals and Mining, and the Springer Nature journal, Discover Minerals

He is Co-Chair of the 12th WCSB (World Conference on Sampling and Blending) which will be hosted by the Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall, UK during June 2026.

In recognition of his contributions to the field, Simon was awarded the Pierre M. Gy Sampling Gold Medal by the IPGSA in June 2022 for his work in advancing the Theory of Sampling (TOS) through practice and education.

Publications: Simon has authored over 100 peer-reviewed conference and journal papers covering a wide range of topics, including:

  • Economic geology (Au, Cu-Fe, kaolinite, REE, Sn-W)
  • Ore/waste characterization
  • Sampling/Sampling Theory
  • Coarse gold sampling
  • Resource development and estimation
  • Grade control
  • Gravity-based mineral processing
  • Narrow vein mining

Competent Person (CP) and Qualified Person (QP):

Most styles of hard rock and alluvial gold mineralisation (inc. gold-silver; gold-antimony; gold-copper-cobalt); tin-tungsten-(copper), antimony (veins); copper (veins and breccias); lead-zinc (veins and replacements); lithium (pegmatites); kaolinite (in-situ granite); fluorspar (veins and replacements), and barytes (veins) deposits.

Snowden Optiro provides advice, mining consulting, training and innovative software solutions to mining and exploration companies, their advisors and investors.

Qualifications : BSc Applied Geology; PGCert Applied Geostatistics; MSc Mining Engineering; MEngSc Minerals Engineering; PhD Resource Evaluation