2005-2006 Departmental Program
Maximizing impacts from exploration activities in Québec

Robert Marquis
Direction de Géologie Québec

Over the next few years, the Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune will be continuing its efforts to maximize impacts from exploration investments. Though work on knowledge acquisition has been put on hold for a year, work relating to geoscience knowledge has by no means come to a standstill. In 2005-2006, the Department will concentrate on producing new exploration targets derived from processing and integrating data from its databank.

The Department will therefore be defining roughly one hundred exploration targets using the databank. It will also produce documents describing promising new exploration sectors. It should be noted that, when 155 exploration targets were revealed in that way last March, 31 were immediately the subject of mineral title applications.

The Service géologique de Québec will be working on a few projects focusing on Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization in the Mauricie Region, architectural stone in the Côte-Nord Region, peatlands and crushed stone. There will be verification field trips in preparation for the regional syntheses. The Service géologique du Nord-Ouest, meanwhile, will be prioritizing projects already begun in areas targeted as having an impact on the Copper Plan, such as the Blake River Group, the Grenville Front, the area east of Matagami and the Urban-Barry Belt. In partnership with the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, it will also continue to work on integrating public databases to produce unified 3D models of geology, geophysics, and geochemistry.

Géologie Québec's 2005-2006 program will also lead to producing new syntheses in the form of promotional documents, compilation maps and topical reports that relate to several active mineral exploration sectors. Therefore, several topical maps, relating to stratigraphy, mineral deposits, structure and metamorphism, will be produced for the Far North regional synthesis project. Another major synthesis covers the entire eastern portion of the Grenville Province. Maps of the Labrador Trough will also be updated. In Abitibi, projects underway will make it possible to provide the Department's clientele with new compilation maps at a scale of 1:250 000 and 1:500 000, with study reports and with mineral potential maps suggesting new exploration targets based on the integration and development of available public data.