Constraints on the geology, geochemistry, origin, and regional correlations of Paleoproterozoic gold-bearing rocks, Fisher property, northern Saskatchewan**

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Canada is well endowed with natural resources, and economic development in northern Canada, in particular, is driven by the search for, and sustainable exploitation of these resources. As an example, most of the large gold deposits in Quebec, Ontario, and the NWT, are associated with faults and quartz veins that cut rocks of the Canadian Shield that are Archean in age (older than 2.5 billion years old). These are called "orogenic gold deposits" as they formed during ancient, mountain building events, and recently some significant examples of this type of deposit have been discovered in younger, Paleoproterozoic (2.5 to 1.6 billion years old) rocks in Nunavut. SSR Mining, the company with which this proposal has been developed, operates the Seabee Gold Operation, which is within similar age rocks in northern Saskatchewan. The company has been operating the Seabee gold deposit, which recently closed, and the adjacent Santoy deposit, and are actively exploring the adjacent area in the search for new, and hopefully, economic gold mineralization. In detail, the project will form part of a M.Sc. thesis at the University of Saskatchewan, and will focus on the analysis of representative samples of the various rock types from the exploration property. Thin sections of the rocks will be used to determine the minerals, textures, and the composition of the minerals, using petrographic microscopy, and electron microprobe analysis; the latter technique is not routinely available to minerals companies. A portion of the rocks will also be analyzed for their overall chemical composition, which will provide constraints on the origin, and tectonic setting at the time the rocks formed. In the end, the company will have a better understanding of the origin of the rocks in the region, and be able to focus their exploration on the rock types with the best chance of hosting new deposits. The discovery of a new deposit would spark economic activity in this isolated part of the Canadian Shield in northern Saskatchewan.