LETTER TO THE EDITOR – Explorers better served by well-planned Ontario survey

Operation Treasure Hunt (OTH), announced by the Ontario government with great fanfare earlier this year as a gesture of support to the mining industry, has undergone some rather curious and difficult-to-fathom revisions which have drawn critical commentary from the exploration community.

Because of various procedural delays, the recently contracted 90,000 km of airborne geophysical surveys under OTH have now been squeezed into an absurdly short interval, as funding has been allocated only until the end of March 31, 2000.

The geophysical component of OTH originally contemplated the application of advanced airborne electro-magnetic (AEM) technology to carry out deep exploration in greenstone belts in Ontario. However, a substantial portion of the announced contracts involve the use standard helicopter AEM surveys, which have a search depth of more than 80 metres, and re-flying large areas already covered by the Ontario Geological Survey.

Furthermore, the irrationally compressed time frame renders impossible an adequate assessment of the performance of other (mainly fixed-wing) AEM systems in terms of exploration effectiveness for deeper targets, and may well overwhelm efforts to ensure requisite data quality and processing.

Additionally, it is noted with regret that several airborne contractors (including one offering an improved helicopter AEM system) were unreasonably bumped from consideration because couriers failed to deliver their proposals before the deadline submission.

The sensible approach to the OTH geophysical program would be to conduct these airborne surveys in several phases under a planned and funded multi-year program. This approach would, inter alia, ensure that:

q the performance of competing airborne EM systems is adequately evaluated by flying known deep massive sulphide targets;

q appropriate AEM systems are employed in suitably chosen areas; and q contractor survey performance and data processing are sought and acquired over this period as an inexpensive compliment to any new surveys.

In general, the author supports government initiatives that encourage mineral exploration and provide support for the mineral industry in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. However, the current OTH program, with its time-limited funding commitment and politically driven, rushed implementation, does not meet these criteria and may ultimately provide only illusory benefits to an industry which the Ontario government purports to be assisting.

Jerry Roth

Stratagex Ltd.

Toronto