Grant: Alliance Grants

Critical minerals are vital for a green economy fueled by renewable energy and efficient batteries, both in Canada and the world. As such, one of the Canadian Government's strategic focus areas is 'driving research, innovation and exploration' of mineral deposits and ways of identifying them. Canada has vast sediment deposits rich in critical minerals. Many of these sediments were eroded from bedrock (ore bodies) by glaciers and dispersed on the landscape by them during the last ice age. In practice economic (critical) minerals are identified in sediment deposits, and ancient glacier flow patterns are mapped. This information is used together to trace the minerals of interest back to parent bedrock ore-bodies that can be mined. However, the process of mineral identification in sediment samples collected from such deposits in the field can be expensive and/or reliant on low-resolution geochemical methods. This proposal seeks to investigate the potential of using the characteristic light (luminescence) signals emitted from quartz grains associated with critical mineral deposits when they are stimulated in the laboratory by light of a different wavelength (colour). This approach would provide a novel, high-resolution method for critical mineral prospecting in Canada that is rapid and relatively cheap.