Gold & Silver Forum - Beetles trigger gold rush in B.C.

Beetles trigger gold rush in B.C.

By clearing tree cover, the insects have made it easier to carry out geochemical surveys Michael Kane, Vancouver Sun Published: Thursday, September 28, 2006

The deadly march of the pine beetle is clearing the way for a new gold rush in central British Columbia.

Discovery of "significant concentrations" of gold and copper has triggered staking to some 600,000 hectares in the Anahim Lake and Nechako River areas, east of Tweedsmuir Park, said Lyn Anglin, president of Geoscience BC.

The hope is that drilling by exploration companies will uncover sufficient deposits to diversify forest-dependent communities at the heart of the mountain pine beetle infestation.

By removing tree cover and opening up access, the beetles have made it easier to carry out geochemical surveys in a relatively unexplored part of the province, Anglin said in an interview Wednesday.

Stream sediment and water samples collected by Geoscience BC from 1,957 sites detected gold values of up to 694 parts per billion and copper values of up to 1,536 parts per million.

"It is too soon to give a really good answer on how significant those findings were, but significant enough that they caught industry's attention and they are in there doing work on the ground," Anglin said.

Forty different claims have been registered in the area so far by individuals and companies, including big names like Teck Cominco, said Bill Bennett, minister of state for Mining.

"They are the sort of companies that we hope will become active in an area that has been very difficult to explore," Bennett said. The Geoscience BC findings "should give everyone a pretty high level of encouragement that more can be found," said Michael McPhie, president and CEO of the Mining Association of B.C.

"When you find indicators like this of any substantive value, it stimulates a significant amount of interest because this is an unexplored part of the province."

The new data is fundamental to attracting title acquisition and then exploration, said Dan Jepsen, president and CEO of the Association for Mineral Exploration in B.C.

"It is very strategic and absolutely vital in this globally competitive market to get that geoscience data out there so that we get the investment."
Geoscience BC is a non-profit organization, formed in 2005, to partner with industry, academia, government and communities to stimulate investment by mining and oil and gas companies. It is funded by a $25-million start-up grant from the provincial government.

"Exploration companies can work anywhere in the world," Anglin said. "If you want them to work in some part of B.C. like the mountain pine beetle area where we really want to see diversified economies, then investing in the geoscience up-front helps reduce exploration risk and attracts companies."

In other jurisdictions, it has been shown that geoscience funding generates between four and five times the invested amount in mineral exploration spending, and 25 times that in the value of new discoveries.
This past summer Geoscience BC supported an additional geochemical survey in the Cariboo region of central B.C. Findings are expected to be available in mid-2007.
mkane@png.canwest.com
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...d53bc5&k=43750

Quote:

The State of Canada's Forests report, released Monday by Natural Resources Canada, said the pine beetle epidemic is spreading at an alarming rate, with outbreaks reaching into Saskatchewan.

"The epidemic is now threatening different pine species, including the jack pine of the northern boreal forest," the report states.
The pine beetle has already destroyed 8.7 million of about 13 million hectares lodgepole pine in B.C.
The epidemic is considered the largest such infestation ever recorded in North America.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...ne-beetle.html