Mineral Exploration is the official publication of the Association of Mineral Exploration British Columbia.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1319479
W inte r 2020 35 PHOTO: PAUL LEACH significant swaths of northwest British Columbia, focusing on areas near Dease Lake, Decar, Polaris, the southern Nicola Arc, southern Quesnellia and Johanson Lake. An extensive program of laboratory analysis, using recently collected and archived samples, continues to build geoscience knowledge across a range of projects and initiatives. Early October saw the successful delivery of an online workshop, "Cordilleran Geoscience: a 2020 Perspective." Planned in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Canada, the Yukon Geological Survey and the Pacific Section of the Geological Association of Canada and comprising 10 presentations, the meeting connected with more than 250 delegates. Fieldwork undertaken on southern Vancouver Island in August supported an ongoing commitment to innovation and technology development at BCGS. Selected field locations hosted trials of mercury detection technology, which can measure miniscule variations in atmospheric concentrations to detect buried ore deposits. Similarly, work progresses on developing technology and software that enable the rapid capture of geophysical information using drones. Mineral potential assessment is now a renewed focus for the survey, with an emphasis on supporting government and stakeholders in land-use planning and policy. BCGS pioneered mineral potential assessment in Canada during the early 1990s, but the more recent development of innovative analytical techniques and machine learning technology offers the opportunity to update methods and greatly improve results. The development of digital data sources and applications such as MapPlace have been a focus of recent activity and place the survey in a strong position to apply these new analytical techniques. Boosted by the recruitment of Dr. Evan Orovan, an economic geologist specializing in minerals systems, the survey is now developing innovative approaches that will be rolled out to re-assess mineral potential across the province in a multi-year, phased project. The BCGS houses, maintains and regularly updates databases including MINFILE, COALFILE, Property File, and the Assessment Reports Indexing System (ARIS). MINFILE documents more than 15,000 metallic mineral, industrial mineral PUBLIC GEOSCIENCE 2020