John Oldow, the principal of Borealis Geosciences, has provided regional and detailed geologic investigations for major and junior mineral and petroleum companies for over 40 years. Projects in the western Great Basin, Arctic Alaska and Canada, southern Italy, and western Venezuela include structural, stratigraphic, and tectonic analysis of fold-thrust belts, strike-slip fault systems, and extensional deformation belts. Studies are largely field-based and include geologic mapping and the application of structural and stratigraphic analysis, potential-field geophysical acquisition and modeling, and the interpretation of well-logs and seismic reflection profiles, to produce time-integrated 3D models of basins and deformed belts.

Since receiving a B.S. Geology in 1972 from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. Geological Sciences in 1978 from Northwestern University, he was Professor of Geosciences at Rice University, the University of Idaho, and the University of Texas Dallas until his retirement from academia in 2018. He published extensively <https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=t2lUajoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao> and has directed integrated investigations involving teams of geoscientists to produce regional syntheses and detailed local studies of specific targets.

Investigations for mineral companies have focused on orogenic gold deposits in large-magnitude extensional belts, Carlin-type, and structurally-controlled Walker Lane gold deposits and claystone and brine lithium deposits in the western Great Basin. Services to the petroleum industry provided regional structural and tectonic analysis of the Brooks Range and North Slope, Alaska, and regional and detailed analysis of structures and basins in the southern Apennines, Italy, and the western Merida Andes, Venezuela. He has provided short courses for industry participants on modern structural geology, regional tectonic processes, and principles of geologic mapping and integration with potential-field geophysics and seismic reflection interpretation.