Dr Michael Jones' PhD work on gold mineralisation saw him move to Western Australia in 1988 to work for Western Mining Corporation, exploring for gold and nickel deposits in the Yilgarn region. From 1994, he consulted to the exploration and mining industry specialising in the integration of geological field mapping and the interpretation of geochemical, geophysical and remotely sensed data for target generation.
Dr Jones has worked on over 80 projects in greenfields and near-mine exploration in a wide variety of mineralised terrains, and was the founding director of Lithofire Consulting Geologists in Perth. He was also the team leader during the discovery of a significant gold deposit at the Higginsville Mining Centre near Kalgoorlie and an iron ore deposit near Newman, both in Western Australia.