Metal Earth Transect Scale Project: Wabigoon, Rainy River

Project Information

Academic Collaborators:

Dr. Doug Tinkham, Professor & Director Harquail School of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University 

Dr. Patrick Mercier-Langevin, Research Geoscientist, Natural Resources Canada

Rainy River Map:

Scope of Project:

The Rainy River transect is part of the larger Metal Earth project led by the Mineral Exploration Research Centre (Laurentian University, Sudbury) and whose the main objective is to constrain factors controlling the metal endowment within Archean greenstone belts. The Rainy River transect area lies within the western Wabigoon and the Quetico subprovinces that form part of the Archean Superior Province and includes the Rainy River gold deposit (3.7 Moz Au; New Gold report, 2014).
 
The purpose of this transect work is to constrain

(i) the stratigraphic and the structural frameworks of the Rainy River greenstone belt and the Quetico subprovince,

(ii) the geodynamic evolution of the Rainy River - Quetico crustal blocks, and

(iii) to place the formation of mineral deposits in complete crustal-scale geological processes.

To address these topics a multi-disciplinary approach combining geological mapping, geochemistry and geochronology will be applied. The geologic interpretation of seismic, magnetotelluric and gravity data sets will extrapolate the revised surface geology through lithosphere. Ultimately, the compilation of these results will constrain the metallogenic evolution of the RRGB and identify the factors controlling the metal endowment in the western Wabigoon subprovince.

Transect Research Projects