In the North, GEM-Energy and GEM-Minerals will detail geological factors that control the distribution of oil, gas, uranium, and base and precious metals.
Photo: ©istockphoto.com/Oksana Perkins

GEM, on the other hand, will employ all manner of advanced surveying and mapping tools unavailable to early geologists: magnetic surveys to locate buried iron-rich minerals that reflect rock structures in the crust; radiometric surveys to locate minerals diagnostic of chemical reactions that might have concentrated metals in one place; seismic surveys to get a look at the internal three-dimensional structure of the earth; electromagnetic surveys to identify rock types on their ability to conduct electricity in the crust and mantle; and on-the-ground mapping to find evidence of folding and fracturing from ancient collisions of tectonic plates and minerals that indicates depth of burial (some mineral chemistry accurately records temperature and pressure at the time of formation). Samples gathered in the field will also be taken back to the Geological Survey of Canada’s laboratories to be put through a variety of geochemical procedures, including isotope work that will reveal the age of the rock. Even with all these sophisticated approaches, the forensic challenges are countless as there is only a very small percentage of bedrock exposed at the surface (the vast majority is covered by water, ice, soil and vegetation). Much evidence has been removed through erosion and because the surface exposures are not pristine, having been potentially reworked by all subsequent events such as glaciations.

“In the end we want to produce a database with four-dimensional geological information, including the time element,” says Hanmer. “From the database, people can then produce their own maps.”

GEM is strategically focused on commodity type since different events in geological history act to create and concentrate resources into economic deposits. Detailed assessment for oil and gas potential covers five areas: the Yukon and Liard Basin, the Mackenzie Corridor and Delta, the Western Arctic Islands, the Eastern Arctic Islands, and Hudson Bay–Foxe Basin.

Hanmer says the work in the Western Arctic Islands, specifically the Sverdrup Basin, is a good example of the types of energy-related questions geologists are trying to answer. “The big question is the evolutionary history of the basin, how it started, the history of the sediments going into it, its history after it filled up,” Hanmer says. Another key question is the “thermal evolution” of the basin, because buried source rocks containing carbon has to go through a geological “oven” to be transformed into oil and gas.

“We know there’s oil and gas in the basin, but where did it go and is it preserved?” he asks. “Are they the right sorts of rocks that oil and gas can migrate through? Where are they within the basin and what kind of history have they been through?”

Of particular interest are so-called “traps,” in which oil and gas deposits pool. One type of trap is a “salt dome,” formed when the weight of overlying rock squeezes layers of salt and forces salt to rise through the rock. At some point this rising salt spills out laterally and forms salt domes that can trap oil and gas beneath them, which is of great interest to oil and gas developers.

Studies on uranium, base metals, precious metals, diamonds, and rare metals will span the Arctic but are being targeted in areas of highest potential. Geological investigations are being performed by teams of government- and university-based geoscientists.

Melville Peninsula, located between the Nunavut mainland and Baffin Island, has long been identified as a promising area for minerals. Melville contains very ancient rocks, 2.7 billion years old, which are part of a belt from north Baffin Island to Baker Lake, where a gold mine camp is coming on stream shortly. “This is known as the Committee Bay greenstone belt,” says Hanmer. “We’re improving on the older geological maps and are finding that potential in these volcanic and sedimentary rocks is great, from base metals and nickel, through to gold.”

Of course, there’s a reason why it has taken so long to mount these detailed surveying and mapping initiatives. There is a tremendous amount of remote territory to cover in very uncertain weather conditions. GEM projects work hand in glove with the Polar Continental Shelf Program which is also part of Natural Resources Canada. From its base at Resolute Bay, Polar Shelf is a one-stop shop that coordinates aircraft contracts to move researchers around the Arctic and provides equipment, supplies, a radio communication network, and global positioning systems to scores of scientific groups from Canadian and international universities as well as government agencies. If you’re doing science in the North, you certainly want Polar Shelf on your side.

To the credit of those who conceived of GEM, the legacy of this program will go much beyond the obvious deliverables of geological maps and databases. Consider this: To fill scientific and skills gaps, GEM is collaborating with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to provide up to $1.2 million in research funding to achieve GEM objectives. The funding will help build the pool of qualified personnel in the geological sciences relating to minerals and energy resource exploration and increase the flow of knowledge from governments and universities to the private sector.

Consider this too: In everything it does, GEM has to consider the benefits to northern communities, in terms of economic development and skills development. It applies to how the science is conducted as well as to how northern communities can participate in and sustain a resource-based economy long after GEM has completed its mission.

“We’re learning through the AGN the best practices of interacting with northerners to ensure benefits remain longer term,” says Hanmer. “We’re getting the AGN’s advice on how to get local communities to work with us. We’re saying, for example, that not only will we buy our supplies for our field work from their communities but we will hire local people for our camps, we will invite youth to work with us and get experience at a northern science camp. The AGN advised us to create a video to show northern youth what it’s like to be in a Geological Survey of Canada northern camp.”

And what would that video show? Plenty of high-tech science, no doubt, but also the ineffable enjoyment of solving the puzzle; using whatever information is available to reveal the story locked in the rocks“If Logan were to walk into the Survey today, he’d be fascinated that we could locate our position anywhere in the north within meters using a GPS, that we now have hand-held x-ray fluorescence machines that we can put out on a rock outcrop and measure trace element chemistry,” says Hanmer. “But the thing he would recognize immediately is that it still takes a geologist to work out what they’re really looking at and what all this evidence reveals about the story of the earth. He’d say that fundamentally we’re looking at the rocks the same way he did.”

“That is one of the magical things about geology. This is not something out of Star Trek. You still need to get down there, be observant and curious and pick the thing apart at the scale of your boot print.”

TO LEARN MORE:

GEM overview

Polar Continental Shelf Program