Subsidiaries of mining giants Inco and Teck have joined with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to finance a chair in exploratory mineral drilling.
The geophysics industrial chair will be funded over five years with funds from NSERC ($900,000), Inco subsidiary TVX Gold ($450,000) and Teck subsidiary Golden Knight ($300,000). The chair will be based at Ecole Polytechnique, which will contribute $356,000. NSERC is Canada’s largest granting agency for research.
The chair was established in response to growing concerns over the country’s declining mineral reserves.
“Conventional research methods are no longer adequate to spur the discovery of reserves and safeguard the continuation of mining operations,” according to a press release announcing the chair.
The 10-to-13-year lead time from discovery to operation makes it even more urgent that new mines be discovered in Canada, the release added. Work will focus on developing techniques and instruments capable of detecting deposits lying hidden up to 3,000 metres beneath the surface.
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