A genetic and exploration model for syenite-hosted scandium mineralisation

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Recent advances in materials science have led to the development of high tensile strength, thermally and corrosion resistant aluminium-scandium alloys that have great potential in the increasingly green aerospace and automotive industry. As most current production of scandium is in China and Russia, there is an urgent need to find scandium resources in the West. Imperial Mining Group Ltd., a Canadian junior mining company specialising in the exploration and development of mineral properties with the potential for hosting rare earth elements, controls the Crater Lake property in northern Québec, and has demonstrated that the underlying syenite ring dyke complex contains potentially mineable concentrations of scandium. Imperial Mining requires that a genetic model be developed to understand the factors that favour the concentration of scandium to economic levels in syenites in order to devise an effective exploration strategy for the Crater Lake complex. The starting point for developing such a model is to establish where (in what rocks/minerals) and how the metal is concentrated. As a result of our recent research (Williams-Jones and Vasyukova, 2018) we know that Sc is an incompatible element and concentrates in early fractionating (from the magma) ferromagnesian minerals, particularly clinopyroxene. Results of analyses of a small number of samples supplied to the applicant by Imperial Mining suggest that clinopyroxene may be the host to some or all of the scandium at Crater Lake. The proposed research will trace the path of scandium enrichment at Crater Lake by reconstructing the evolution of the magma and possible subsolidus hydrothermal alteration using a combination of major and trace element analyses of bulk rocks, minerals and melt inclusions. This will lead to a genetic model that will be used by Imperial to target the scandium mineralisation in the Crater Lake complex and will promote generally the exploration for and discovery of economic syenite-hosted scandium deposits elsewhere in Canada.