BCGS December Technical Talk – Wednesday December 10, 2014

SPEAKER: Ken Witherly, Condor Consulting

TITLE: Application of Airborne Magnetics, EM and Gravity to the Ring of Fire Intrusive Complex, Ontario

DATE/TIME: Wednesday December 10th, 2014 at 4:30pm. LOCATION: Room 451, 409 Granville St (UK Building at Granville and Hastings), Vancouver

Abstract:

The Ring of Fire is an intrusive complex composed of mafic and ultramafic rocks hosted in the Archean age McFaulds greenstone belt located in James Bay lowlands of northern Ontario. Due to low topographic relief and an extensive cover of Paleozoic platform carbonate rocks, the area remained largely under explored until kimberlites were found in 1988. This lead to the development of the Victor diamond mine in 2006. Subsequent exploration for kimberlites resulted in the serendipitous discovery of the McFaulds VMS deposits in 2002 (ref Mugall 2010). With this discovery came the recognition that there was a greenstone belt present in the area and it could host economic deposits. A semi-regional Geotem survey was flown in 2003. Exploration in the area was complicated as a number of junior companies had positions in the area and while they would share the costs of expensive surveys, they were competing for what was deemed the best land positions. Ground surveys were conducted based on the Geotem results, with the targeting model being either kimberlite or VMS. This work eventuated in the discovery of a major deposit of chromite and a number of significant nickel sulfide deposits in 2007-2008. During this time, numerous airborne and ground surveys were carried out including a regional Falcon AGG and mag survey in early 2011. While various technical and commercial presentations have been made on the Ring of Fire geophysical work, due to the complicated claim ownership most of these have tended to focus on the results controlled by one group. This review is intended to look at the overall area which hosts at three significant deposit styles; VMS, magmatic nickel and chromite.

KEGS/BCGS Roundup Breakfast – TUESDAY, JANUARY 28^th 2014

Location: White Spot Restaurant, 1616 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, B.C.

Time: 7:30am

Speaker: Peter Kowalczk, P.Geo, CEO & Director , Ocean Floor Geophysics Inc.

Topic: Non-military geophysics, ships and subsea vehicles and the search for minerals in the deep ocean

Registration: Required in advance by January 22^nd 2014.  Online at My KEGS or via the registration form (link below) and emailed to: mickiallen@marac.com

 KEGS_2014_BCGS_Breakfast_Form

Abstract:

Exploration for Submarine Massive Sulfide (SMS) deposits has evolved into a regular process of regional ship-borne work followed by more localized mapping and resource evaluation campaigns using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) over favourable areas.  There is an established body of operating skills that is now moving from specialized niches in the military, salvage and academic environment into routine application on commercial mineral exploration cruises.  Exploration no longer depends upon the opportunistic mapping of deposits found during research cruises but is instead a systematic and cost effective process using a package of established best practices. Robotic geophysical systems are central to the exploration process at all stages. 

The challenge going forward is to rapidly assess the tonnage potential and grade of a deposit   A number of trial mining systems have been built and are presently being tested. 

Ongoing work by national organizations and by private venture mining companies has a relatively low profile, but is ongoing and moving steadily towards the development of operating mines.

Please see below for the final speaker line-up & schedule for this week’s symposium.

DATE: Tuesday November 26^th                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

LOCATION: St John’s College, UBC – Social Lounge (2111 Lower Mall)

Registration for the 2013 Symposium is now open! This full-day event at St John’s College, University of British Columbia, on November 26th will include the following speakers, amongst others:

Sean Walker – Sensity vs Resolution in Geophysical Inversion

Magdel Combrinck – Developing an efficient modelling and data presentation strategy for ATDEM system choice and survey design

Nathan Hayward – Geophysical investigations and tectonic reconstruction of IOCG occurrences: Great Bear magmatic zone, NT

John McGaughey – Virtual Geo-Teams: The challenges of building multidisciplinary exploration teams outside large companies

Please register in advance by using the Buy Now button and completing the form below. Registration will be open until November 20th.

RegistrationForm for 2013 Symposium_distributed

The BCGS plans to once again host its annual symposium and is seeking presenters/discussion leaders for this event. This year’s symposium will be aimed towards stimulating discussion. To this end there is no official theme but rather a series of topics. Each topic will have “talks” that can range in length from 5 – 30min in length with discussion time in between. We have come up with some potential topics that we feel may be of interest however all submissions are welcome. If you are interested in presenting or leading a discussion please send an email to info@bcgsonline.org including a brief description/abstract of your talk and amount of time you request. We will announce the program and registration details at a later date.

Potential Topics:

• Physical Properties
• Selecting the most suitable geophysical system/method
• Optimizing survey design
• Tools/Tips of the Trade

DATE: Tuesday November 26th

LOCATION: St John’s College, UBC

REGISTRATION DETAILS: To be announced