Fonds uofa-2644 - Neil Campbell fonds

Engineer, Geologist, 1914-1978. Neil Campbell was born in Medicine Hat in 1914 and graduated from the University of Alberta with a B.Sc. in Mining Engineering in 1937. He did post-graduate work at Queen's University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned a Ph.D. in 1943. In 1937, Mr. Campbell joined the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada (later known as Cominco Ltd.) as a mining and exploration geologist in the Northwest Territories. In 1940, Mr. Campbell, using his own theory to predict the amount of lead and zinc hidden in the ground, persuaded Cominco to develop a seemingly worthless tract of land at Pine Point, NWT, and this resulted in the Pine Point Mine, one of the richest lead-zinc mines in the world. In 1943, he recognized and solved the West Bay fault problem, which led to the discovery of substantial new reserves of gold in the Con mine and spurred Yellowknife's development as a mining community. For his efforts on West Bay, which was also the topic of his dissertation, Mr. Campbell received the Barlow gold medal from the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. In 1956, he provided the geological direction for the discovery of the Wedge copper mine in New Brunswick. In 1966, he was appointed chief geologist for Cominco. Mr. Campbell retired from Cominco in 1968 but continued his work as a geological engineer by forming his own consulting practice, which aided geological exploration in several different continents. In 1970, he received an honourary doctorate from the University of Alberta for his lifetime achievements. Mr. Campbell passed away in 1976. Mr. Campbell was survived by his wife Eunice, and his three children Alan, John, and Laura Ruth.