During this time, MIM supported Tim's Masters degree in Exploration and Mining Geology at James Cook University and Tim worked and completed a dissertation on the Mt Carlton project which is now an operating gold mine (1.6Moz's gold).
 
After completing the first regional 1:25k map of the northern Drummond basin and epithermal gold occurrences in that region, Tim went to MIM's high-grade Tick Hill gold deposit in NW Queensland for a year where he was tasked with mapping the “Tick Hill Inlier”, a region of polydeformed amphibolite facies rocks. Following this, Tim went to Papua New Guinea where he worked for Barracuda Petroleum on regional gas exploration, structural mapping and quantitative interpretation of structural geology. Tim returned from petroleum to mineral exploration in 1994 and commenced work with MIM's Project Generation Group in Brisbane where he completed an extensive time-space analysis and tectonic reconstruction of the Tasman fold belt in Eastern Australia. This program was an initial phase of what has now become a more evolved and highly effective targeting methodology Tim and his teams have applied to various regions throughout the world. In 1995 MIM supported Tim on a PhD program at the University of Queensland researching the time-space evolution of the Argentine Central Andes and their relationship to copper and gold mineralization in that region. Tim completed his PhD in 2000. He then worked as a structural/geology target generation consultant for various companies including Rio Tinto, North Ltd, Placer Dome, IAM Gold, Noranda and BHP-Billiton throughout South America and elsewhere including Turkey and China. During this time Tim was instrumental in the discovery of AngloGold Ashanti’s +2MOz La Rescatada gold mine in Peru.