Grant: Industrial Research Chairs

Mineral exploration and mining employs approximately 400,000 Canadians and generates billions of dollarsfor the Canadian economy but the face of mineral exploration and mining in Canada, and around the world, ischanging. There is a rapidly growing focus on advanced mineral exploration and resource development. Inorder for Canada to play a leading role in this transdisciplinary sphere, Western University and Yamana GoldInc. propose the creation of an NSERC / Yamana Gold Inc. Industrial Research Chair in Advanced MineralExploration. This aligns with industry and government recognition of innovation being central to responsibleresource exploration and extraction. Canada is a world leader in mineral exploration and mining technology,but discovery of new mineral resources has declined, despite increasing exploration expenditures. Severalaspects of the exploration process need to be improved, including the development of new methodologies andapproaches to efficiently and effectively explore at broad scales and at depth while implementing advancedexploration and resource development practices informed by science and enabled by technology.The proposed research program is comprised of overarching themes in the following areas: (Theme 1)characterization of gold deposits in the Kirkland Lake mining camp; (Theme 2) sources of mineralizing fluidsand metals; and (Theme 3) integrated gold system signatures. Taken together, they will provide anunderstanding of the signature(s) and possible genetic relationship(s) between several deposits across theKirkland Lake mining camp while applying new, cutting edge analytical techniques and technologies toimprove exploration efficiency and effectiveness. These results will provide a knowledge-based foundation forthe development of practical models and exploration vectors to gold mineralization, unlock value in largedatasets, and improve exploration success.