The BC Geophysical Society and Geoscience BC are proud to present the 2018 BCGS Fall Symposium “Geophysics for Mineral Systems Thinking”

Many world-class mineral deposits are known to lie above geophysical and geochemical anomalies in the lithospheric mantle. The new paradigm in mineral exploration for such large-scale deposits, driven primarily by the Australian experience, is to image the whole lithosphere looking for those geophysical and geochemical anomalies and in particular to map the fluid pathways through which mantle derived fluids pass upwards through the crust. This approach, of mapping the whole mineral system, is one that leads very effectively to discovery of significant deposits through developing understanding of the whole system. In this new paradigm large-scale geophysics has a crucial role to play in the identification and definition of geologic systems on a regional scale, which can have an enhanced expectation of being the location of resources:  minerals, petroleum, diamonds and geothermal.

Symposium Schedule: BCGS 2018 Fall Symposium Schedule

Symposium Abstract Booklet: BCGS 2018 Fall Symposium Abstracts

Please register in advance of the symposium. Your registration can only be guaranteed once payment has been received. The attendee name must be entered for registration to be complete.

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Co-Chairs: Joel Jansen, Anglo American and Alan Jones, Complete MT Solutions

Introduction By: Gavin Dirom, President and CEO, Geoscience BC

Speakers:

Katherine Boggs, Mount Royal University – From LITHOPROBE through EarthScope to the new pan-Canadian EON-ROSE Research Initiatives; Geologic Implications for Mineral Exploration across North America

Fred Cook, University of Calgary (emeritus) – Geophysical, Geochemical and Geological Targeting Potential Mineral Deposits: From Lithospheric Scale to a 5-cm Drill Core

Fiona Ann Darbyshire, Université du Québec à Montréal – Regional-scale natural-source seismology and the cratonic lithosphere

David Eaton, University of Calgary – Tectonic architecture in the Canadian Cordillera: Potential insights from CCArray seismological studies

Randy Enkin, GSC-Pacific, NRCan – Petrophysics for Mineral Exploration: Linking Geophysics and Alteration Geology

Alan Jones, Complete MT Solutions  – Keynote: Mineral systems mapping using magnetotellurics: Examples from Canada and Australia

Henry Lyatsky, Exploration Consultant – Exploration Uses of Regional Gravity and Magnetic Data: Examples from Province-Scale Work in Alberta

Ben Murphy, Oregon State University – How Long-Period EarthScope MT Data Might Inform Targeted Mineral Exploration in the Central United States

Andrew Schaeffer , GSC-Pacific, NRCan – Probing the diamond potential of the North American Lithosphere using seismic tomography

Adam Schultz, Oregon State University – Detailed studies of geothermal and volcanic systems by combining EarthScope long-period MT USArray data with higher-resolution wideband MT arrays embedded in the larger array

Richard Smith, Laurentian University – Geophysical exploration for mineral systems: highlights from the NSERC-CMIC Footprints Project and CFREF Metal Earth Project

Martyn Unsworth, University of Alberta – Lithospheric resistivity structure of Western Canada from long-period magnetotelluric data

BCGS Technical Talk – March 15, 2018

Speaker: Obone Sepato, Anglo American

Title: Density and magnetic susceptibility data of the Bushveld Complex, South Africa

Date/Time: Wednesday, March 15, 2018 @ 4:30pm PST

Location: 4th Floor Conference Room, Room 451, 409 Granville St. (UK Building at Granville and Hastings), Vancouver

Abstract:

The Bushveld Complex (BC) is the largest known layered intrusion. This suite of rock crop out in northern South Africa to form the Western, Eastern and Northern Limbs. Most research carried out focuses on the mineralized horizons in the Rustenburg Layered Suite (RLS) of the BC. This study presents a large database of wireline geophysical logs across a substantive part of the stratigraphy of the RLS of the West- and Eastern Limbs. These consist of density and magnetic susceptibility datasets sampled at 1 cm. The major lithologies of the RLS intersected in the boreholes presented are gabbro, gabbronorite, pyroxenite, norite and anorthosite whose density histograms reveal that they are predominantly normally distributed, with density averages of 2.86-3.2 g/cm³. The magnetic susceptibility for these lithologies has a large variation from 10^-7 to 13.2 SI with distributions that are multi-modal and asymmetric, which is typical of large layered mafic intrusions. Cross-correlation plots between density and magnetic susceptibility for several boreholes show that the above-mentioned lithologies form clusters (circular to elliptical), which typically overlap. This has been further investigated using k-means classification, to automatically detect these to create a semi-automatic lithology logging system, which has been particularly successful in boreholes from the Eastern Limb.

The final analysis carried out was using wavelet analysis across individual locations in the BC. This has revealed multi-scale cyclicity in all of the boreholes studied, which is attributed to subtle layering created by variations in modal proportions between plagioclase and pyroxene. In addition to this, since layering is generally ubiquitous across layered intrusions, this cyclicity can be assumed to be present across the entire BC. This technique may become increasingly important should the cyclicity in physical property data correlate with reversals in fractionation (demonstrated in the Northern Limb thus far) trends since this may suggest zones of magma addition, challenging the current perspective of four major magma additions as opposed to smaller periodic influxes of magma for the creation of this intrusion.

BCGS Technical Talk – February 28, 2018

Speaker: Mike Dentith, Centre for Exploration Targeting, The University of Western Australia

Title: The Implications of the Mineral Systems Concept for Geophysical Exploration: A Perspective

Date/Time: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 @ 5:00pm PST

Location: 4th Floor Conference Room, Room 451, 409 Granville St. (UK Building at Granville and Hastings), Vancouver

About the Author:

Prof Mike Dentith is Professor of Geophysics at The University of Western Australia and a research theme leader in the Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET).  He has 25 years experience researching, teaching and consulting in mineral exploration geophysics.  He is editor of two case study ‘geophysical signatures’ publications on Australian mineral deposits and co-author of the textbook ‘Mineral Exploration Geophysics for Geoscientists’ published by Cambridge University Press.

Abstract:

Mike Dentith, Centre for Exploration Targeting, The University of Western Australia

KEGS/BCGS Roundup Breakfast – Tuesday, January 23, 2017

Speaker: Dr. Jaymie Matthews, UBC Astronomy Professor

Title: Asteroseismology: Stealing the geophysicists’ rule book and launching it into space

Date/Time: 2018-01-23 @ 7:30am – 9:00am

Location: Princess Louisa Room, The Fairmont Waterfront Hotel
900 Canada Place, Vancouver, BC V6C 3L5

Registration: Online at www.kegsonline.org (Deadline Jan 22, 2017)

Abstract:

Astronomers have been updating the biography of the Sun for decades, at the same time trying to confirm models of its internal structure. Like the Earth – of which we can sample directly less than 0.2% of its total depth – most of the interior of the Sun is hidden from direct view. Except for neutrinos from the solar core, we receive direct information only from a surface layer of gas whose depth is only 0.05% of the radius of the Sun.

Astronomers, faced with the same challenge that geophysicists had tackled before us when they wanted probe the deep interior of the Earth, turned to the rule book of geoseismology. For the Sun, we could apply principles of global seismology and eventually local time-distance seismology, using the intrinsic vibrations of the Sun caused by sound waves propagating in the solar interior. Much of this was possible for the Sun with telescopes grounded on Earth, because of the extremely high signal-to-noise and surface spatial sampling possible for solar observations. But when it came to extending this technique to the distant stars, by asteroseismology, it was necessary not to toss out the rule book, but to toss it up, into space.

Canada’s first space telescope, called MOST, was one of the pioneers, later joined by the French CoRoT space mission and eventually NASA’s Kepler satellite. These are the most sophisticated stellar lightmeters ever built, and launching them into space launched a revolution in ultraprecise photometry of stars and exoplanets. That in turn launched a revolution in our ability to seismically probe distant stars, and to put our own Sun in better context by studying the interiors of other suns. Not just ‘middle-aged’ suns like our own, but senior suns, and teen suns, and baby suns, and even suns still in the womb.

Even for our own Sun, the seismic data are driving the physics, so we need to include what used to be considered third-order effects lost in the noise, if we’re to match models to observed frequencies to within their measured accuracies.

Join me on a voyage through space and time, where the guide book contains the principles of time series analysis and mathematical inversion, to see how far we have come in the last 15 years, and the exciting frontiers that are ahead of us.

BCGS Technical Talk – January 18, 2018

Speaker: Doug Schouten, PhD, CRM GeoTomography Technologies Inc.

Title: Muon Tomography Applied to a Dense Uranium Deposit at the McArthur River Mine

Date/Time: Thursday, January 18, 2018

Location: 4th Floor Conference Room, Room 451, 409 Granville St. (UK Building at Granville and Hastings), Vancouver

Abstract:

Muon Tomography Applied to a Dense Uranium Deposit at the McArthur River Mine.
Doug Schouten, PhD, CRM GeoTomography Technologies Inc.