VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Nonprofit organisation Geoscience BC has unveiled data from the first phase of a C$2.42-million magnetic survey project to map public lands of British Columbia.

The Search project was expected to help exploration companies operating in west-central British Columbia unlock the resource potential hidden below the region's surface, leading to increased interest in mineral exploration in a province that was already attracting about 21% of Canadian explorer’s exploration budgets.

Leading the multiyear Search project was Geoscience BC minerals and mining VP Bruce Madu, who explained to Mining Weekly Online at the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia’s Mineral Exploration Roundup conference that the data gleaned would be valuable to First Nations and local communities interested in increased knowledge and understanding, leading to better and more informed land-use decisions.

He explained that the Search project was the most detailed airborne magnetic survey ever flown in west-central British Columbia, updating nearly 50-year-old data.

The survey, conducted in the fall of 2015, was designed to identify mineral potential in this underexplored region and provide information to guide land-use decisions. Some parts of this area had not been surveyed since the 1960s, stressed Madu.

"The data we have generated here will provide detailed insights into the bedrock and focus mineral exploration and investment in this area. The data is available to anyone interested in the geology of this area,” he announced.

Airborne magnetic surveys could detect concentrations of magnetic minerals below the earth's surface, particularly when the surface was covered with forests and sediments.

New mineral discoveries, and the investment and employment that flowed from them, were critical to the economic health of British Columbia, noted provincial Energy and Mines Minister and Minister Responsible for Core Review Bill Bennett during a press conference.

“It is directly accretive to investment,” he said.

Bennett compared the latest survey, covering 6 700 km² between Terrace, Kitimat and Smithers, to high-definition television, as opposed to the historic data being compared with an old tube television, significantly improving the quality and resolution of existing survey data.

A portion of the Search project funding came from a C$5-million investment that the provincial government provided Geoscience BC in 2015.

"It is very important for First Nations Communities to include reliable geoscience data when considering investment and land-use decisions in their territories. This survey data will contribute to the decision-making process in a meaningful way," said Nanwakolas Council president Dallas Smith.

Madu also announced that Geoscience BC was already about one-third into its 2016 exploration programme, which was expected to cover an area between Smithers and Vanderhoof – about double the size of the first-phase programme, and potentially the largest survey Geoscience BC had ever commissioned.