Integrated multi-parameter footprints of ore systems: The next generation of ore deposit models

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Mineral exploration in Canada is increasingly focused on concealed and deeply buried targets, requiring more effective tools to detect large-scale ore-forming systems and to vector from their most distal margins to their high-grade cores. This research project, involving 42 researchers from 24 universities across Canada and 27 industry collaborators from 25 companies in the Exploration Consortium of the Canadian Mining Innovation Council, is aimed at improving exploration success by developing practical applications and approaches to the acquisition, management, integration, and analysis of geological, geochemical, mineralogical, petrophysical, and geophysical data that can be used to identify the ore-system footprint at its most distant edge and at depth. It will also provide fundamental new knowledge about the unique combinations of geological processes that have been responsible for some of the largest concentrations of metal in the Earth's crust. The first phase of the project will involve multidisciplinary integrative research at three major ore systems: the Canadian Malartic gold system in Quebec, the McArthur River - Millennium uranium system in Saskatchewan, and the Highland Valley copper-molybdenum-gold system in British Columbia. The research at each site will integrate existing exploration data and in-house company knowledge with new data, providing a foundation for technological advances in remote detection of ore deposits and for mapping at depth or under shallow cover.