Mineral Exploration Research Centre (MERC)

The Mineral Exploration Research Centre (MERC) provides multidisciplinary research and education on mineral exploration in order to help create new mines.

MERC’s focus is to conduct and promote cutting-edge, field-based, collaborative research on mineral deposits and their environments, and to educate and train highly qualified people for careers in the minerals industry, academia and government.

MERC is part of the Harquail School of Earth Sciences at Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario. It comprises an internationally recognized group of faculty and adjunct researchers from academia, industry and government. Over 100 faculty, research scientists, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students are working on mineral deposits, Precambrian geology, exploration methodologies and targeting.

Over the last five years, MERC’s annual research funding has exceeded $2M. In 2016, MERC initiated a 7-year project Metal Earth, with cash and in-kind funding of $104M, the largest exploration-focused geoscience project ever undertaken in Canada.

MERC’s research projects are supported by Canadian and international mining companies, the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Geological Survey of Canada, provincial and territorial geological surveys and other agencies. The research projects are global and address fundamental ore deposit problems including method development and new technologies to aid mineral exploration in Precambrian and younger terrains. MERC provides modular courses, short courses and workshops aimed at undergraduate and graduate students from around the world, and for professional development of people in the mining and exploration industry.

Visit the MERC website to learn more about our research projects including Metal Earth.