GEM allows earth scientists to apply modern geo-mapping in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories where information is most limited.
Photo: ©istockphoto.com/Ryerson Clark

If you talk with Simon Hanmer long enough, past his lucid explanations of geological mapping techniques and observations on the worldwide competition in geoscience, you will catch a glimpse of the soul of a scientist. “What really turns geologists’ cranks,” he will say, “is to sit there on the rocks or sediments and work out the geological story.”

Spoken like a true rock hound. Hanmer should know: he is a veteran geoscientist who has worked in some of the most remote regions of Canada. Hanmer now sits in perhaps the best seat in the house for a Canadian geologist. He coordinates Geo-mapping for Energy and Minerals (GEM), an ambitious $100 million federal program that aims, essentially, to tell the geological story of Canada’s North.

Administered by Natural Resources Canada’s Geological Survey of Canada, GEM is in year two of its five years of funding. It is part of an ambitious plan to complete geological mapping in the North to a standard that can help industry be effective in the exploration for new resources, particularly in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories where information is most limited. That geological story will inform decisions on energy and mineral development and help fuel northern prosperity. The federal government has established collaborations with the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, the Yukon and several provinces, and the work will be conducted together with territorial and provincial geological survey offices and Canadian universities.

There is a clear objective behind GEM. Filling in our geological knowledge of the North with geology maps and information-rich databases is a worthy goal, but for the program to be judged a success, GEM must have a much greater impact.
 
“It might sound strange coming from a geologist who usually talks about rocks,” Hanmer says, “but in this instance the government isn’t looking just for maps and scientific articles; they’re looking for outcomes that benefit northerners and all Canadians: socioeconomic development, jobs, community well-being.”

As Hanmer points out, public geoscience, the sort of work that GEM embodies, is a competitive advantage in the world marketplace. The more a country like Canada can demonstrate its potential for undiscovered geological riches, the more likely global corporations will consider Canada as the best place to invest in expensive exploration and developing mines. Countries such as Australia, Mexico and Peru are all reaping benefits from their substantial investments in geoscience.

GEM is not about finding oil and gas deposits or gold and copper, but is about uncovering the potential for these resources to help policy makers and industry make intelligent and informed decisions about the multiple choices in sustainable development and environmental stewardship. “The ultimate clients for the Geological Survey of Canada are the people of Canada,” says Hanmer. “Our role is to put the information and interpretations out there publicly so that they are accessible to all.”

GEM’s level of ambition hearkens to the early days of the Geological Survey of Canada, which was born in 1842 as Canada’s first scientific agency and one of the oldest government organizations. Political leaders of the day desperately wanted pre-Confederation Canada to develop an industrial economy, and for that to happen they needed to take stock of its resource base.

William Logan was the Survey’s first director and he made his mark. In 1869, Logan’s great geological map of Canada was published, revealing the geology and geography of southern Canada as far west as Manitoba and north to Timiskaming, in Northern Ontario. Farther north, however, was another question. Those who followed Logan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, legends such as George Dawson, Robert Bell, Charles Camsell and Albert Low, were hardy adventurers who were eager to add to our knowledge of the North. Their legendary expeditions by foot, canoe and later by air fought through the hardest of challenges but were hampered by daunting distances and harsh conditions. Other Nordic nations, such as Finland, Norway and Sweden, have produced geological maps of their Arctic regions in great detail, but those countries do not have the same logistical challenges to overcome.

In many respects, GEM wants to do for northern Canada what Logan and his Survey trailblazers did for southern Canada. The fact is Canada’s tundra and High Arctic are not very well known geologically, particularly so in central and eastern regions of the Arctic.