James Strongman

Technical Director

James is a company director and its technical leader. He has been with the company since 2001, starting as a junior petrographer under the supervision of Petrolab’s founder, Dr Alan Bromley and subsequently purchasing the company in 2006. During his 20 years with the company he has gained a wide spectrum of experience in the analysis of materials ranging from concrete and man-made stone replacements to precious and rare earth metals found in electronic scrap. His specialist field is, however, metalliferous ores, and he has developed a broad knowledge for the importance and application of mineralogy to mineral processing problems.

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John Fletcher

Director & General Manager

John joined the company as a director and joint owner in 2007 and has over 20 years of experience in project management, operations and finance. He heads up the personnel and finance sides of the business and is responsible for quality control and data management on petrographic and mineralogical investigation projects. He has, together with James, driven the ongoing expansion of the company, including setting up new services and improving productivity and consistency by developing a custom laboratory information management/ reporting system.

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Chris Brough

Principal Consultant Mineralogist

Dr Christopher Brough CGeol MRes MEarthSc is a Principal Consultant Mineralogist specialising in the application of petrology and mineralogy (Optical Microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Laser ICP-MS) to the minerals and mining industry. He has 10+ years post-doctoral experience working on a diverse range of projects and covering a wide range of resource types. In particular he brings experience of the application of environmental mineralogy in the context of acid-rock drainage and metal leaching (ARDML) and of geometallurgical assessments to understand processing implications and mineralization history. More recently he has been working extensively on the implementation of I.S.465 analysis within Petrolab, including concrete petrography and review of reporting.

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Bradley Staniforth

Senior Geomaterials Scientist

Bradley is a senior geomaterials scientist with over nine years industry experience providing petrographic and materials investigations of various materials to British, European and American standards. He has experience in project management and reporting of materials consultancy as well as structural and materials investigation projects. Bradley is a Chartered Engineer through the IOM3 as well as an active affiliate of the IStructE and during his time at Petrolab has worked extensively on I.S.465 analysis and further developing Petrolab’s Geomaterials services. Bradley has also filled the role of deputy quality manager and has extensive experience providing technical support to materials expert witnesses.

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Corinne Garner

Senior Mineralogist

Corinne is a Chartered Geologist with prior education in Petroleum Geology at the University of Aberdeen and Mining Geology at Camborne School of Mines. Since joining Petrolab as a Junior Mineralogist in 2017, she has gained experience in analysis techniques for a wide range of materials and has been twice promoted, first to Project Mineralogist, and now to Senior Mineralogist. She has shown a particular aptitude for metallurgical sample preparation and has undertaken research to refine our techniques and better understand how they can effect analysis results.

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Rachel Garside

Project Mineralogist

Rachel graduated with an MSci in Geology from the University of Cambridge and joined Petrolab in 2014. She has gained experience in all aspects of the business, from mundic testing and assisting with sample preparation to examination and reporting on a wide variety of materials. She is currently responsible for the output of the majority of construction materials reports involving both optical and electron microscope work and is a member of the Applied Petrography Group.

Mariola Zając

Project Mineralogist

Mariola is a project mineralogist with over five years experience. She obtained her Masters and Bachelor degree from AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland. Since joining Petrolab as a Junior Mineralogist in 2017 she has become experienced in optical petrography and automated mineralogy covering a wide range of exploration, mineral processing and remediation projects. Alongside working on numerous base and precious metals projects, Mariola is also involved in concrete and aggregate examinations to British and European standards. She is also responsible for management of our in-house XRD system and external EPMA analysis.

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Libby Rose

Project Mineralogist

Libby has a First-Class Honours degree in Geology and was awarded a MSc with Distinction in Mining Geology at Camborne School of Mines in 2017. She went on to complete an internship at CSIRO on their CMR Discovery Internship Program in Perth, WA. Since joining Petrolab as a Junior Mineralogist in 2018, she has gained experience in a wide range of optical petrography projects, automated and manual electron microscope work and was promoted to a Project Mineralogist in 2020. She is currently responsible for the management and scheduling of analysis on both of our Zeiss EVO SEM machines, as well as managing both concrete and mineralogy clients.

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Rory Colville

Project Mineralogist

Rory has a 1st Class Masters degree in Geology from the University of Bristol, graduating in 2018. After graduation he went on to complete 2 years consultancy experience at CGG Robertson, where he was a key member of the QEMSCAN team. He is now responsible for the maintenance and advancement of our two Zeiss EVOs and Axio Imager. Alongside observation and interpretation on optical petrography and SEM focussed projects, for concrete and mineralogy clients. He also brings experience in Python scripting for image analysis, data scraping and automation of everyday workflows.

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Aileen Barwell

Office Manager

Aileen brings extensive experience of working as Personal Assistant or Executive Assistant across a diverse range of previous employments. This has included secretarial support to materials consultants within Hong Kong, to a series of Executive Secretary positions, the latest of which was 9 years as the Executive Secretary to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Hong Kong. More recently she has worked as an Educational assistant, a Caseworker for a former MP for Falmouth-Camborne and a Personal Assistant for WCA Chartered Surveyors.

Josie White

Mineralogist

Josie White is a recent Geology graduate from Keele University and the University of Manchester, where she has just completed a Master of Science in Petroleum Geoscience. During her time studying at University she also gained 7+ years technical and personal experience in the retail sector working at Boot Opticians, 111 Health Advisor and at Specsavers which brings invaluable real-world experience of working to deadlines and project management.

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James Harvey

Mineralogist

James Harvey is a recent graduate from the University of Exeter where he completed a first-class integrated Masters degree in geology in 2021. His fourth year research project investigated the potential for small deposit mining/production of technology metals in European terranes using GIS data. Since graduating he has worked for one year with Tungsten West as Junior Geometallurgist, a role heavily focussed around sample preparation, core logging, mineralogical data analysis and laboratory QAQC.

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Nigel Wood

Thin Section Laboratory Technician

Nigel is primarily responsible for the production of petrographic thin sections, using the only Pelcon thin section machine in the UK. He has extensive laboratory experience from over 20 years working in previous roles for mineral extraction and geotechnical testing laboratories.

ISO9001

ISO 9001 is the world’s most recognised quality management system standard, established by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO). First certified in 2020, Petrolab has since been recertified to October 2024. This certification represents complying with the standards for customer-focused quality management with a focus on continuous improvement. Petrolab are proud of this achievement and it’s focus on listening to client feedback and at the end increasing the quality of our output and the satisfaction of our customers.

NDEP

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) is the regulatory body the oversees the preservation and enhancement of the environment of the state in order to protect public health, sustain healthy ecosystems and contribute to a vibrant economy. Since 2020 Petrolab has been certified to work within the State for fully automated and semi-automated SEM-EDX analysis. Petrolab was recently recertified until 2024 for this analysis and as of 2023 is now certified for XRD analysis. Petrolab is proud of these achievements and its recognition of the quality management system that we have in place for these critical analytical tools.

Competent Petrographer

Petrography is a diverse discipline covering the analysis of multiple materials from geomaterials (e.g. concrete, mortar, industrial products), to original quarried rock destined for various end purposes (e.g. aggregate, slate and stone) to multiple applications in the mining industry (automated mineralogy, exploration and paragenesis studies). As petrography is an integral part of the analysis of all these materials Petrolab offers internal recognition of competency in petrography based on years of experience (at least 5), training, separate recognition by another Competent Petrographer and example reports held within a personal portfolio. All work undertaken for Clients is led by staff (either directly or through technical review) who are considered Competent in the field in question.