MERC Updates
Upcoming board meeting: June 27th, 2018.
Welcome new Chair, Dr. Catharine Farrow.
Thank you Dr. Tom Lane.
Isotopic Mapping Superior Craton
"The fundamental dataset behind this project offers exciting developments for both economic geology and blue-sky science."
Modern-Ancient Ocean Crust Project
Metal Earth partners with the University of Ottawa to study modern ocean environments.
Metal Earth Field Crew
Overview of the field work being conducted this summer.
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Dr. Catharine Farrow, PGeo
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Catharine is a professional geoscientist with more than 25 years of mining industry experience. From 2012 to 2017 she was Founding CEO, Director and Co-Founder of TMAC Resources Inc., a public exploration, development and mining company based in Toronto and Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. TMAC was taken public in July 2015 and achieved commercial production at the Hope Bay Doris Mine in 2017, the first producing gold mine in Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut.
Before TMAC, Catharine was most recently COO of KGHM International (formerly Quadra FNX Mining Ltd.). Previously at Quadra FNX and FNX Mining Company Inc. she held multiple senior executive roles. Before FNX, Catharine was with both Inco Ltd. and the Ontario Geological Survey. She currently serves as a Director of Franco-Nevada Corporation, is President of FarExGeoMine Ltd. (her private consulting company), is a member of the Laurentian University Goodman School of Mines Advisory Board, and has been an Adjunct Professor at Laurentian since 1995. Catharine obtained her BSc (Hons) from Mount Allison University, her MSc from Acadia University and her PhD from Carleton University.
On behalf of MERC and the Harquail School of Earth Sciences, we are pleased to have her on board and we look forward to working with her.
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We would like thank Dr. Tom Lane for many years of past service as Chair of MERC’s Advisory Board. Tom became MERC’s first advisory board chair in 2002 and helped to guide MERC’s transition from a dominantly Sudbury-based research centre to a centre with a national focus. In these early years, Tom and the Advisory Board’s guidance were instrumental in MERC’s growth to fee-based membership in 2010, and to an emerging international centre with an exploration research focus. Tom’s excellent advice prompted the development of MERC’s first 5 year business plan in 2011, which set the stage for Laurentian’s application to the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, which led to the $104M Metal Earth Program awarded to Laurentian in 2016. Tom’s vast knowledge of new and emerging technologies, and of global scientific capacity will continue to benefit MERC going forward as a member of the Metal Earth Science Advisory Committee.
Thank you for your many years of dedicated service to MERC, to the Harquail School of Earth Sciences and to Laurentian University, and your continuing efforts in ensuring Metal Earth’s success.
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Craton-scale module:
Isotopic mapping of the Superior Craton
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A progress update with Metal Earth researcher David Mole.
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David Mole is planning, designing and implementing a research program that will allow Metal Earth to collect large volumes of isotopic data on hundreds of samples, quickly and efficiently across the Superior Craton.
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This will be the largest high-quality geochemical and isotopic dataset for any Archean craton. This offers unique opportunities to understand the tectonics that drove geological change and activity in the early Earth, the formation and evolution of the crust, and timing and localisation of major mineral provinces, which form in response to those processes.
Figure 2. Sm-Nd (εNd) map of the Yilgarn Craton from Mole et al. (2013).
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"The fundamental dataset behind this project offers exciting developments for both economic geology and blue-sky science. "
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"We hope the dataset and the maps we build will have real effects and implications for industry and explorers, and become a tool they can use to further refine selection decisions. Further to this, we also hope the data will aid in the fundamental understanding of how major mineral provinces form, and the science behind the correlations of certain ore deposits and crustal history.
Finally, the data collected in this project will allow fundamental insights into the understanding of tectonics and crustal evolution in the early Earth, and by proxy the development of the atmosphere-biopshere system. Ultimately the understanding of these processes will help us constrain the development of the Earth into a habitable planet full of life."
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What is isotopic mapping?
Using a spatially-extensive isotopic dataset (in this case Lu-Hf) to map variations in crustal age, source and evolution, and image the crustal architecture of a region.
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Previous isotopic mapping in Western Australia demonstrated that cratons (such as the Yilgarn and Pilbara), have a cryptic history and corresponding architecture that can be shown best by mapping their isotopic data spatially. The craton architecture corresponded to the location of different types of mineral deposit. In the Yilgarn, orogenic gold and komatiite-hosted Ni-Cu-PGE systems occurred in juvenile, young, mantle-derived crust, adjacent (at the margins of) older crustal blocks within the craton.
In contrast, banded iron formation (BIF) deposits were concentrated within the older crustal regions. These correlations suggest that isotopic mapping could make a powerful area selection tool, for the strategic ranking of exploration targets.
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One of the primary project objectives is to provide the exploration community with an isotopic map that can be used in a similar way to pre-competitive data provided by the geological surveys.
This will be a new and valuable tool that will help drive expansion of greenfields exploration into new or under-explored areas.
Further to this, the dataset the team is building will allow Metal Earth to investigate spatial and temporal development of archean crust in unprecedented detail. As well as offering the potential for important academic discoveries related to the establishment of the current habitable Earth, this study will also drive a greater understanding of the fundamental first-order processes behind the development of major ore provinces.
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Why is crustal architecture important?
Archean cratons are heterogeneous in many geological attributes, especially mineralisation. The constraining architecture helps us understand time-space variations in the evolution of the craton.
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Utilizing the Metal Earth Superior Data Compilation
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"As our work covers the entire craton, it is vital to have a good, craton-wide geological understanding of the area, and this must be embodied into a spatial form.
Without this detailed craton-scale geology we would not be able to make efficient comparisons between the basic geology and the isotopic data. We feel that the integration of the Superior data compilation and our isotopic mapping will be a valuable tool to industry and academic in Canada, and worldwide, and result in a step-change in our understanding of the Earth’s largest Archean craton."
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Metal Earth partners with the University of Ottawa to study modern ocean environments to provide insights to ore deposits in the Superior Craton.
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An interview with Research Associate Margaret Stewart from the Modern-Ancient Ocean Crust Project, a partner of Metal Earth at the University of Ottawa.
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Figure 1: Bathymetric map of the northern Lau Basin showing its complex geology and structure.
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Mark Hannington, Margaret Stewart and Justin Emberley from the University of Ottawa has partnered with Metal Earth to provide insights to ore deposits in the Superior Craton. Metal Earth seeks answers to fundamental questions related to how secular changes in Earth’s evolution have resulted in differential metal endowment in space and in time in the Precambrian shield. The Modern-Ancient Ocean Crust project studies modern ocean environments to develop an understanding of the factors that localize deposits on the sea floor. They will then be able to take these learnings and apply them to the ancient deposits in the Abitibi in the Superior Craton.
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The present is the key to the past.
The sea floor presents research opportunities to study mineral deposits since the ocean crust is still undergoing processes and actively forming ore deposits today. The Ocean Crust project will develop a comparison for Metal Earth to allow for a more thorough understanding of how ore deposits may have developed billions of years ago.
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Figure 2: Bathymetric map of the Lau Basin showing major spreading centers and structures. White line represents the outline of the Abitibi greenstone belt at the same scale as the bathymetric map. Many complex structures and geologic domains occur within an area the size of the Abitibi greenstone belt.
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"It's like a puzzle. On land, you have all the pieces in a pile whereas on the sea floor, the pieces are already put together "
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The advantage of studying the seafloor is that it provides the opportunity to observe the different stages throughout the mineralization process. Deposits currently on land initially formed in ancient oceans and represent the culmination of these processes, making it difficult for the Metal Earth team to study the distinct stages of mineralization. Throughout the modern oceans, different stages in the mineralization process are currently taking place in different plate tectonic settings and can be observed and compared to the ancient deposits currently on land.
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"We need to come up with new ways to identify prospective areas on land. We are looking at the modern environments of the ocean to try and better inform what processes could have been happening billion of years ago”
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Metal Earth Field Crew Overview
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In order to reveal the fundamental geological processes that were responsible for the formation of mineral deposits in Superior Province, forty nine MSc, PhD students, research associates, and field assistants will be conducting research for the Metal Earth project across northern Ontario and Quebec. Here we highlight three of the transects.
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Rouyn Noranda
Taus Joergensen, RA
Marina Schofield, PhD
Jonathan Sutton, MSc
Adrian Rhem, MSc
Andrew Bradley, FA
David Dickson, FA
Brandon Smith, FA
Aidan Paleczny, FA
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Various geological, geophysical, and geochemical methods are being used to understand the degree of metal endowment in the Precambrian-aged Abitibi and Wabigoon greenstone belts. Together, Amir, Will, Fabiano, and Brandon are performing a gravity survey in order to complement the seismic reflection and magnetotelluric geophysical methods that have already been collected or are currently being collected. Geophysical prospecting methods such as reflection seismology, magnetotellurics (MT), and gravity, as well as geological observations, have been or will be acquired along selected transects perpendicular to the geological strikes in the Abitibi and Wabigon areas in order to differentiates highly mineralized zones from poorly mineralized ones in Precambrian Rocks in the Canadian Shield. The geophysical gravity crews are contributing to the Metal Earth via collecting and pre-processing of gravity data across seven transect such as the Sudbury, Cobalt, Larder-Lake, Swayze, Matheson, Geraldton, and Dryden transects during this summer field season of the project. The geophysical gravity crews will acquire approximately a total number of 1872 gravity observations. This data will then be used help generate density cross-sections and contribute to the understanding of geological structures.
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Jon looking at all the outcrops he will be mapping this summer. He will be mapping the volcanic stratigraphy and associated intrusions while also collecting samples that are systematically placed along two sample grids.
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Work has begun on the Geraldton-Onaman transect that crosses from the Quetico metasedimentary subprovince to the granite-greenstone eastern Wabigoon subprovince ~240 km east of Thunder Bay, ON. This project aims to better understand the geological evolution of Geraldton-Onaman region that has similar geological characteristics to the Abitibi greenstone belt, yet has considerably less metal endowment.
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Geraldton/
Beardmore
Zsuzsanna Toth, RA
Keaton Strongman, PhD
Anna Haataja, FA
Jason Orloff, FA
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The Geraldton-Onaman team ready for take-off to visit the Marshall Lake area along the northern boundary of the Onaman-Tahsota greenstone belt. From left to right: Bruno Lafrance, Harold Gibson, Greg Stott, Jason Orloff, Anna Haataja, Keaton Strongman, Zsuzsanna Toth.
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Geophysics
Graham Hill, RA
Eric Roots, PhD
Amir Maleki, MSc
William McNeice, MSc
Fabianno Della Justina, MSc
Brandon Hume, FA
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Various geological, geophysical, and geochemical methods are being used to understand the degree of metal endowment in the Precambrian-aged Abitibi and Wabigoon greenstone belts. Together, Amir, Will, Fabiano, and Brandon are performing a gravity survey in order to complement the seismic reflection and magnetotelluric geophysical methods that have already been collected or are currently being collected. Geophysical prospecting methods such as reflection seismology, magnetotellurics (MT), and gravity, as well as geological observations, have been or will be acquired along selected transects perpendicular to the geological strikes in the Abitibi and Wabigon areas in order to differentiates highly mineralized zones from poorly mineralized ones in Precambrian rocks in the Canadian Shield.
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